Jerry Can Fly

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Jerry Can Fly

Jerry sits, very still, on the balcony of the apartment, wondering what it would be like to be able to fly.

There is a cool breeze wafting down from the mountains off to the west as the sun starts to settle behind them. It’s just chilly enough that he needs his sweater, but all the same there’s a change in the offing, a hint of moisture, a tiny scent of soil coming back to life, a certain thickness to the air that wasn’t present during the dry days of winter. Indeed, he can see a slight shimmer of bright green around the branches of the trees in the neighborhood twenty-five stories below him, they are awakening, loosening their pores, allowing that Spring might at long last be approaching.

Through the open door leading into the apartment, he can hear Ann banging around in the kitchen, rearranging the cabinets yet again. Didn’t she just do that a couple of weeks ago? Well, at least it’s better than the alternative, the times when she just curls up on the bed, staring at the wall, answering his questions in a monotone, unable to make eye contact. But right now, she is making quite a racket in there, deep into the pots and pans by the sound of it, this is a little more enthusiastic than usual, and it’s disturbing his reveries. He has a bit of a headache, and the noise is not helping.

Movement in the sky in front of him catches his eye and he focuses just in time to watch a fat red-tailed hawk soar by, only twenty or thirty feet away and right at eye level. The hawk circles widely and sinks downward toward the trees of the golf course next door. Jerry loses track of it in the deepening dusk, but he knows where it’s headed. There’s a nest high in one of the trees, and soon Jerry will be able to watch through his spotting scope as the hawk and its mate tend to their eggs, he may even have a chance to see the fluffy white fledglings before the leaves of the tree grow too thick and conceal them for the rest of the summer.

Suddenly, he hears a rustle behind him and turns to look. Ann has poked her head out of the door and holds up a small skillet. Her long brown hair hangs loosely around her face, her pale cheeks are flushed. “Hey, do you ever use this pan? I’m running out of room in here, so if you don’t need it, it’s going to Goodwill.” Jerry does most of the cooking, so he appreciates that she’s asking. He thinks about that particular pan…when was the last time he used it?

“Well, I guess I could do without it,” he replies. “It’s a nice size for just one or two eggs, though.”

Mild irritation and impatience flash across her face. She’s in “Getting Things Accomplished” mode and has no time for indecision. He almost smiles. Even when she’s annoying him, she’s still pretty.

“OK, I’ll keep it,” she says, “but you better start using it,” and vanishes back inside.

Jerry turns back to the vista before him. The sun is down, and the sky is darkening, the lights are starting to come on across the city. They picked this apartment just for this view, for the fact that this high-rise, even though it is on the edge of downtown, has a view which faced over the golf course and the low roofs of the residential neighborhood around it. Nothing to block the ever-changing sky, the sweep of clouds, the soaring of the hawks, the clattering honks of migrating geese, the swooping acrobatics of swallows. They are high enough off the ground that the sound of traffic below is only a soft rumble most of the time. It’s peaceful, even in the middle of the city it feels like they are far removed from it all, out in the country somehow.

When they first moved in, they sat out here together, a happy young couple, cocktails in hand, a dish of mixed nuts between them, just enjoying the view, catching up on the day’s events, relaxed and confident in each other’s company. That was before things changed, of course. She hasn’t joined him out here for a long time now.

All the same, it’s nice to be out here himself tonight. It has been a long, cold winter and he was cooped up inside for most of it, unable to get away from the darkness inside his mind, a darkness that seemed to be growing, out of proportion to the season. With spring approaching, he promises himself to come out here as much as possible.

Two sparrows land on the railing of the balcony right in front of Jerry, a mating pair apparently, the male with dark red feathers on his head, and the female, gray mixed with brown. They sit for a moment, heads tilting side to side, bodies twitching back and forth on their tiny black legs, then they are gone in a flutter, off into the night.

And that is the moment that Jerry has the thought for the first time, not only what it would be like to fly, no, that’s not enough . . . he wonders if he can fly.

-----

It’s fully early summer, now, Spring has come and gone, and they are at the doctor’s office.. They do not always attend these appointments together, but Dr. Schmidt has asked that they come as a couple today. Ann has not really accepted the fact that they need the services of a psychiatrist. After the last appointment like this, she told Jerry that she felt like he and Dr. Schmidt were ganging up on her.

Despite that, here they sit again, in Dr. Schmidt’s very neutrally decorated office. A single armchair for Dr. Schmidt, a small couch, another armchair, all around a small glass coffee table with a box of Kleenex in the middle. Bookshelves over there, with a few glass bowls and some brass animal figurines, artfully mixed in with some books; Jerry has never bothered to read the titles, and a desk over in the other corner by the window, a few papers neatly stacked next to the phone. Jerry has never seen Dr. Schmidt use it.

Jerry and Ann sit side-by-side on the couch. Dr. Schmidt is opposite them in his chair. They form a flattened triangle, with Ann at the pivotal corner.

She is crying.

Jerry looks down at his hands, trying not to move, willing his body to exude empathy, sympathy, support, whatever she might need right at this instant. His head hurts, he has more headaches these days.

Dr. Schmidt watches them both quietly. He had only asked one question, and to Jerry it had seemed like a safe opener. “So,” he had said, “how are things going?” That was all it had taken to start the tears flowing.

Dr. Schmidt catches Jerry’s attention silently, gives him a faint, sympathetic smile and raises his eyebrows. There is an unspoken exchange between them.

Things aren’t going well. Not well at all.

-----

Back on the balcony that night, Jerry sits nursing a cocktail . . . a stiff one. It’s warm out tonight and there’s a thunderstorm moving eastward far to the north. Jerry can see the orange flashes in the clouds, but the storm is too far away to hear the thunder.

The apartment is quiet. Ann has gone to bed early; she took one of her sleeping pills at Dr. Schmidt’s insistence. “You need to make sure you get a good night’s sleep, Ann,” he had said. Ann just nodded, her eyes still red from crying.

They had driven home in silence until they were almost to the apartment building, Ann in the passenger seat watching the neighborhoods go by. Finally, she turned to Jerry.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He looked at her and then reached over to take her hand.

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

“I know, but . . .” looked back out the window, “. . . I’m still sorry.”

Out on the balcony, Jerry’s stomach rumbles. He hasn’t had dinner, but he doesn’t want to make any noise in the kitchen that might wake up Ann.

A memory pops into his head, a vacation that they took to Florida right after they got married. They rented that house in the Panhandle, close to the ocean. The water was so blue and the sand so white, it was mesmerizing, magnetic. They didn’t want to go anywhere else, so they just lounged on the beach during the day, made brief trips to the grocery store or the local farmer’s market, and then got comfortably tipsy in the evenings as Jerry tried to create as many variations on fish and shrimp dishes as he could think of. Ann sat on a stool in the kitchen watching him work, keeping their wine glasses full. They made idle, silly conversation, he couldn’t remember what they talked about. After dinner, they made love and got sweaty, and sometimes took a walk in the dark on the beach to cool off, barefoot in the warm Gulf water.

Ann smiled a lot in those days, so long ago now. She joked with him and teased him and snuggled up against him on the couch watching TV.

He takes a gulp from his cocktail and feels it burn going down. He hasn’t seen her smile in a long time. There is a dull ache in his stomach and a heaviness in his chest. He misses her smile deeply.

Just then he hears noise in the sky above him. A flock of geese are heading north in the darkness, honking noisily. He squints but he can’t see them. They are loud, though, can’t be more than a couple hundred feet up.

He wonders how it would feel, soaring through the night like that, steering around the thunderstorm, night wind in your face, cities like patches of sparkling jewels passing below, dark velvet expanses of emptiness between them.

And just like that, abruptly, without any effort . . . he levitates off his chair.

At first, he’s not sure that it’s really happening. But then he looks down to see his feet a foot off the ground and he almost drops his drink. He’s still in the sitting position but his butt is at the level of the arms of the chair.

His heart is thumping hard in his chest, and he realizes he’s holding his breath. Slowly, he lets it out and cautiously refills his lungs.

Still floating. No, not floating . . . he’s flying.

-----

Some weeks later: “I don’t know, Jerry, this is a challenging case, to be honest,” says Dr. Schmidt on the phone. “I think I’m missing something . . .”

“Like what exactly?” Jerry asks, rubbing his aching forehead with his free hand, glad that Dr. Schmidt can’t see him doing it. “Where did this come from? Nothing happened, there’s no personal tragedy, no traumatic event. I didn’t cheat on her . . . there was nothing wrong between us! I don’t understand why we can’t talk anymore. She has pulled away . . . ”

“Like I said, I don’t know. I need to order some more tests, maybe an MRI. I still think it’s something metabolic, but I just don’t know exactly.”

There is a long pause while Jerry tries to calm himself. He feels badly about blaming Ann.

“Jerry, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here, I just . . . I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. We’re only twenty-nine! We were going to have kids . . . but now . . . what if this doesn’t get better? She seems to be suffering . . .”

“I know, I know, Jerry.” Dr. Schmidt has his psychiatrist voice working now, “You just have to keep trying to show her that you love her. Support her as best you can. We’ll work through this . . . together. I’m here for you, both of you.”

-----

Jerry gets the hang of flying fairly quickly, faster than he thought possible. Out on the balcony in the evenings, after Ann is asleep, after he processes and catalogues their ups and down through the day, after the first cocktail starts to erase the pain that seems to live behind his eyes most of his waking moments these days, after the sun is all the way down and it’s really dark . . . he just lets his thoughts go to the sky. He imagines what it would be like up there with the hawks, the sparrows, the geese, all that space, up away from it all, above it all, the clean clear air around him, nothing but space, space, space . . . space to move, space to breathe, space to be free . . .

And up off the chair he floats.

Controlling it takes a little longer, a little more concentration. First, the height . . . with a little concentration, he finds that he can make himself go higher. The first time, he goes a little too fast and bumps his head on the balcony of the apartment above. Then he gets nervous, overreacts, and comes down too hard, landing in his chair with a thud that makes the legs creak in protest.

But it gets easier. He slowly gets control. It reminds him, somewhat oddly, of last summer, when he decided that he needed to buy a gun. There had been a spate of muggings downtown, not even really near the apartment, but nevertheless he got it in his head that he needed to be able to protect Ann. So, he went to a sporting goods store and bought a 9 mm Glock on the advice of the salesman. He took it to a shooting range one afternoon and shot up two boxes of bullets. At first the weapon felt like a wild animal in his hand, jumping around, making his whole body flinch every time he pulled the trigger. But after a while, with some focused effort, he settled down. He felt calm. He started hitting the target right in the center. He got control.

So, he takes it slow. One night on the balcony, he tries flying from a standing position and finds himself hovering with the soles of his shoes six inches off the ground. Twenty minutes later, he’s calmly sipping his drink while he turns his body 360 degrees in the air like he’s rotating on a turntable, first toward the apartment and Ann, then toward the warm open night beyond the balcony, then back toward Ann.

The next iteration is horizontal. He rises up out of his chair and wills his body sideways, over the little side table, to Ann’s chair on the other side of it, and then down to a soft landing there. Now he’s sitting where Ann used to sit, looking at his own empty chair three feet away. What would it be like to sit here and see him through her eyes? What kind of a man does she see these days when she looks at him? Does she still love him like she used to, back in the beginning, before . . . well, before?

Eventually he turns his gaze to the railing of the balcony.

That next step will be a doozy.

-----

As late summer approaches, there is the issue of their jobs. As an accountant, he can easily work from home. The senior partner at the firm is understanding, tells Jerry to do whatever he needs to do. Jerry manages to log into the computer long enough each day to keep up with things, but his heart is not in it.

Ann, however, works in commercial real estate, for a big developer who needs her in the office, needs her out in the field to show clients around. So she takes Family Medical Leave, then, when that runs out, the company lets her go.

Jerry crunches the numbers. They’ll be on a pretty tight budget, especially considering the medical bills, and it would probably be better if they moved to a cheaper apartment, maybe even just a little lower in the building. But the thought of giving up his balcony seems intolerable, and for an instant he feels a sudden flash of anger directed at Ann. Almost immediately, he feels guilty and bats it back into whatever dark hole it came out of.

With the extra time at home, she gets more restless, has episodes of agitation, pacing the apartment. She is irritable at times, snapping at Jerry for little things like not hanging up his towel neatly, not asking what she might want for dinner, not getting up early enough in the morning when she wants to get the bed made and tidy up the bedroom. Sometimes she interrupts Jerry when he’s trying to work in the second bedroom, which he has made into his home office. She even comes into the room when he’s on a video conference once or twice, asking questions or needing his attention for some reason, usually something inconsequential that could have waited.

She’s starting to get on his nerves.

-----

It’s after midnight on a muggy late summer evening. Jerry leans over the balcony railing and looks up and down the glass windows of the tower. Most of the lights are off, almost everyone has gone to bed, conveniently including Ann, who he made sure has taken a sleeping pill tonight and is snoring softly in the bedroom behind him. There is hardly any traffic on the streets below, the city is quiet. The moment has come.

He wears dark sweatpants and a hoodie. He takes a deep breath, kicks off his loafers, closes his eyes for a long moment, and then leans forward against the rail, and . . . just floats up and over it and out into space.

He notices his heart is pounding but otherwise he feels calm, his breathing is slow and easy. He dares to look down. Yes, he’s really hanging in midair, twenty-five stories up. There’s no sense of weight pulling him down, nor does he feel like a balloon floating upward. He’s just, well, he’s just flying, that’s what he’s doing.

He wonders how he’s supposed to control this . . . whatever it is. What if, say, he wanted to move left? And just like that, he starts to slowly slip to the left. Stop, he thinks, and he eases to a halt, still hanging in the air but now a good ten feet away from the balcony.

Forward, he thinks, and he glides away from the building. Up, he thinks, and away he goes.

He spends the next half-hour slowly learning how to really fly, first making a circumnavigation of the building, looking in windows as he circles, most of them dark, but a few still lit, with people puttering in their kitchens, or reading in bed, or lying on a couch surfing through channels and bathed in the blue glow of their TVs, all completely unaware of the miracle happening in the darkness outside. Then, feeling bolder, he soars upward and above the building, into the cool night, where he takes a deep breath, feeling a surge of exhilaration.

It doesn’t matter what’s going on below, what new changes are taking place in the mind of the woman he loves, down there asleep in her room. Up here the air is clear, it’s cool and fresh. Up here, he’s free. Up here, he’s just Jerry, the guy who can fly.

-----

Later that very week: “I’m so sorry,” Dr. Schmidt says, “I should have thought of it sooner. I thought it was just depression, or maybe bipolar disorder . . . I should have ordered the scan sooner.” He looks down at his lap.

Jerry looks down at the radiology report in his hand. Ann is next to him on the doctor’s couch again, her eyes closed, hands in her lap.

Jerry tries to focus on the report.

“What does this part mean? Infiltrating?”

Dr. Schmidt clears his throat softly. “It means that the tumor has spread, put off little tendrils, if you will . . .” He pauses, clears his throat again. “Like little roots . . . have you ever seen the way ivy spreads up the side of a house?”

Yes, Jerry has seen that. So has Ann, but she doesn’t react.

“Is surgery an option?”

Another pause. “I’m afraid not. It would cause too much . . . damage.”

“What about, what do you call it . . . chemo . . . chemotherapy? Radiation?”

“No . . .” Dr. Schmidt clearly feels terrible about this. Jerry almost feels sorry for him, but is angry with him, too. Ann has opened her eyes. She is staring out the window behind Dr. Schmidt’s unoccupied desk.

Jerry feels the frustration rise. “There’s got to be something we can do!”

Dr. Schmidt goes back into psychiatrist mode, demonstrates that he knows how to deal with denial and anger, even when they come at the same time.

“Jerry, I can prescribe drugs for the symptoms, but you’re going to have to be strong. For Ann.”

Jerry turns to look at Ann but she’s still staring out the window. He puts his arm around her, but she is stiff. Frozen, almost.

“What kind of symptoms?”

“Well, there will be pain . . .”

-----

Jerry is cooking dinner; it’s going to be a special one. Chicken Piccata like only he can make it, the breasts sliced and pounded thin, floured and sautéed to the perfect shade of golden brown, his own personal lemon caper sauce with just the right amount of grilled onions mixed in, angel hair pasta tossed with quartered tomatoes. It’s always a home run with Ann, her favorite Italian dish.

For her part, Ann has been working in the master bedroom for hours, rearranging all the drawers and the closets. “Getting organized,” she says, “Just getting organized.”

Organized for what, he wonders? But at least she’s up and about, not lying on the bed as has become all too common, not just staring out the window like a mannequin in a storefront.

He’s got the chicken off the stove now; it’s staying warm on a plate tented with foil. He throws the pasta in a pan of boiling water, and adds some chicken broth to the grilled onions, ready to start on the sauce, the final step. He heads to the door of the bedroom and sticks his head in.

“Hey, dinner’s almost ready . . .” He freezes.

The room is a wreck, underwear and socks tossed all over the bed, drawers pulled open on the dresser, half empty but with T-shirts and sweatpants hanging over the edges like icicles, no, like stalactites, fuzzy stalactites.

Ann is sitting on the side of the bed, his side, hands in her lap. His nightstand drawer is open.

She’s staring at a gun lying on the top of the nightstand.

Jerry recognizes it instantly of course. It’s the Glock. His Glock.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Whatcha got there?”

The air in the room feels heavy, almost thick. Everything’s in slow motion. Ann turns her head very slowly to look at him. Her eyes are red, cheeks are wet. She takes a deep breath and lets it out raggedly.

“Oh, Jerry . . . oh . . .”

He opens the door slowly and walks over to ease down on the bed beside her, his hands in his own lap.

Like a slowly falling tree, she leans into him, and he puts his arms around her and pulls her close, feels her start to sob. Out in the kitchen, he hears a hiss as the pasta water boils over the saucepan and onto the burner. The Chicken Piccata will go into the refrigerator later, leftovers for tomorrow . . . if there even is a tomorrow. His head is aching again.

Later, when she’s asleep, he thinks about taking the gun up into the sky with him, up where he can drop it into some pond or creek. But instead, he hides the gun in his closet, behind some sweaters on a high shelf, higher than she can reach.

-----

Oh, but up in the warm August night skies, there’s nothing but Jerry. His senses overflow. He feels the rush of the cool air against his face, making his eyes water if he goes too fast. The thick liquid smells of the night flow through his nostrils . . . the sharp tang of the freshly cut grass over the golf course, the sweet bite of the diesel fumes over the freeways, the warm decay of the algae over the creeks and ponds, even the brief hints of the exhaust vents over the restaurants . . . a burger here, Chinese dumplings there, sweet curry over there. He overhears nonsensical cooing from couples strolling along paths in the parks, rowdy ruckuses from backyard barbecues, arguments and apologies from bedroom windows. He sees the cold white sequential strips of streetlights, the blue glows of swimming pools, the yellow spill of front porch lights, the flickering glare of car headlights on their anonymous journeys along the vast maze of streets and highways.

He learns to relax his arms and legs as he flies, no Superman pose for him, no, he just keeps his body straight but loose. It’s really just floating, he knows that intellectually, but in his heart he’s flying. Without a flapping of wings, yes, without any strain, yes, but he is indeed moving, in whatever direction he desires . . . up, down, left, right . . . over the city, out over the suburbs, across the fields of the eastern plains, up the canyons of the western mountains.

He savors the ignorance of the people below him, who never bother to look up into the night sky to see the rare and special human gliding over them. He is surprised by the awareness of the wild animals who do notice him, the deer grazing in the grassy field who bolts in startled alarm when he swoops overhead, the bear rummaging through berry bushes on a mountainside who growls and swipes a claw above reflexively as Jerry circles overhead.

He is a ghost, a phantom, a wraith, a figment of the imagination. He is alone, free from worry, free from the future, free, free, free . . .

He flies every night that he can, every night that he thinks that Ann will stay asleep in her bed. His cocktails, and there are more of them these days, stronger ones too, are left sitting on the little balcony table, the city street quiet below.

The night air . . . it holds his peace of mind, his salvation, his sanity.

-----

Fall is coming and there is now an experimental medication in their life. It’s a pill, a giant, horse-sized pill, taken four times a day, something called “palliative therapy,” a term that Jerry had never heard before until it spilled from the lips of the oncologist.

“I want to be honest,” said the young female doctor to them both, in a sympathetic yet practiced tone, “this is not going to cure your cancer. I’m pretty sure it will buy you some time, and it should help with your symptoms. But that’s about it . . . just some more time . . .”

After the appointment, they debate the pros and cons of the medication. They both know the end is coming, but they’re not ready. Jerry tries to be strong, but he knows that she can see the fear in his eyes, she can tell he is not ready to let go, that he has never even imagined being without her. So, they agree to try the horse pill. They decide they are willing to endure whatever side effects may come, whatever horrors may await them at the end of this journey. And for that, Jerry feels eternal gratitude . . . and infernal guilt.

He manages a quick run to the grocery store by himself one afternoon but comes home to find her curled up in the fetal position on the couch in the living room, decorative pillows clutched to either side of her head, her eyes scrunched tight. He leaves the grocery bags on the floor of the kitchen, frozen foods melting, pulls her head onto his lap.

“Oh, Ann . . .”

“It’s OK. I’m just so sad.” A tired, weak whisper.

“Me too, baby, me too.”

“I’m so sorry, Jerry. I just want it to be over for both of us.”

He feels the hot tears well up. What can he do? There is nothing. Well, not nothing . . . there is, in fact, something . . .

-----

And so, on this early fall night, there are orange and brown leaves rustling in the trees below the balcony. The . . . what should he call it . . . resolution? . . . has arrived. Jerry stands on the balcony, no drink in his hand this time. Instead, he rests his hands on the railing in front of him, no, that’s not quite right, he grips the railing, his fingers curled and tight.

The sound of the gunshot from behind him, from inside the apartment, still reverberates through the air. It will have been noticed by the neighbors, even though it is a late hour. Phone calls will be made. It was such a sharp crack after all, penetrating through the walls, out through the door of the balcony, out across the glittering lights in front of Jerry, up into the dark, dark blue of the sky.

Jerry relaxes his hands, it’s easy now. His feet leave the ground, he leans forward, and his body floats over the rail and up into the night.

He rises, up past the floors above the apartment, ignoring the yellow-light scenes of domestic life behind him, the living rooms bathed in the blue glow of televisions, the bustle of brightly lit kitchens where dishes are being washed, where leftovers are being tucked away into refrigerators, where bedtime cocktails are being sloppily mixed, teeth being brushed, pajamas donned, and sleepy good-night kisses exchanged.

He rises above the top floor of the building, past the hum of the rooftop air-conditioning units, past the crackly flapping of the American flag on its lonely pole. Onward he goes, up into the low clouds flowing in the crisp autumn air over the city, feeling a tingle of mist on his cheeks, he floats even higher, now above the clouds, higher than he’s ever been before.

And yet . . . he still feels her below him, still feels the stabbing ache in his heart. Down there, down in the apartment, Ann lies on the rug in the living room, a dark red stain slowly spreading from her head across the pale fibers. The Glock lies a few feet away, her right hand reaching toward it.

There will be questions later, he knows. The police will search for him, wondering about odd details. Where could he be? Why are his wallet, his car keys still in the apartment, his car still in the garage? The apartment locked from the inside? There will be questions about fingerprints on the gun, the odd angle that the bullet entered her head, almost from the back. They will eventually make their way out onto the balcony, out at the view of the city which he has enjoyed so much, and then they will look down. Answers will start to form in their heads.

But he will not be there to provides those answers himself. He is still rising, toward the bright stars now, toward the white crescent moon that hangs to the northwest, over the mountains. He will let himself glide toward that bright sliver off in the east, maybe even past it, who knows?

It is quiet up here, just a slight rush of the wind as it flows down off the mountain, getting colder now, chilling the tears on his cheeks. He is far too high for the birds, soon he will be higher even than the airplanes. So quiet, so empty, so peaceful . . . he flies in every sense of the word, toward eternity, toward infinity, toward Ann, wherever she may be, in peace at last. He hopes . . . no, he is sure . . . that he will find her.

-----

A voice behind him.

“Jerry, are you all right?”

He loosens his grip on the balcony rail, and turns toward the door, confused. Ann stands there in her pajamas, her hair a mess, a look of concern on her face.

Where is he? What is this place? The gun? He was flying . . . everything is so fuzzy in his mind . . .

“Are you OK?” she asks. “I wish you wouldn’t lean over the rail like that.”

He doesn’t know what to say. The words won’t come. His head is throbbing.

She takes a step through the door, extends her hand.

“Come to bed. Is your head hurting?”

He nods. It is hurting worse than it ever has. He feels unsteady, his balance is off.

She takes another step, grasps his hand, pulls him to her. He sinks into her embrace, then lets her guide him away from the railing, away from the void, away from the dark night.

“Come on inside,” she says gently, “I’ll get your meds. Let’s go lay down together.”

Behind him, the vast open sky pulls at his heart, but he follows her inside. His flying days are over. It is indeed time to lie down.

John Tynes is a writer, photographer, physician, and traveler living in Denver, Colorado.

‘The Will’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

The Will

“He’s dead.”

The words fall from Frederick’s numb lips, drawing six pairs of eyes his way. He stands on the threshold between the parlour and the living room, one foot on cherry wood, the other on the lush rug that has seen better days. Frederick sways in indecision, weight shifting in his shining leather loafers. To enter, or not to enter? His hand darts through his receding hairline. Frederick too has seen better days, and in the years to come, he’ll likely be as bald as his recently deceased father. Relief floods him, cooling his pale cheeks. Not that his father’s dead, of course. But that the weight of his remaining family members’ gazes are quickly removing themselves from his lanky form. Someone—Agatha—shrieks.

“No!” she wails, falling back in chaise, hands pressed to her rapidly flushing cheeks.

The young woman makes sure her glassy green eyes are visible to all of the parlour’s occupants before she pinches them shut on a sob.

“No! It cannot be! My darling husband...”

The blonde infant sitting on a playmat at her feet coos in blissful unawareness. He mashes a block into his gummy mouth.

“Not like it’s that big of a surprise,” Jonathan quips, tossing back a shot of whiskey, his stubbled cheeks bulging as he swallows. It is a wonder he was still coherent at this late hour, having gone straight for the liquor cabinet the moment he stepped through the estate’s doors.

Starting from this afternoon, they’d been gathered in the parlour, nibbling on the abundance of coffee and cakes the butler continuously fussed over. One at a time, they’d each gone to the patriarch’s bedroom to say their goodbyes—everyone except Johnathan. The dark-haired man knew better than to grace his father-in-law with his presence.

“The man was old as fuck.” Johnathan toasts his glass in the air, condensation dribbling down the sides of it. A dark chuckle passes his lips. “If you don't have anything nice to say, and all that.”

“Goddamn it, John,” Veronica curses, standing and smoothing out the wrinkles in her ivory blouse.

Her chastising is barely heard over the escalating and piercing wails pouring out of Agatha. Crossing the room and pulling Frederick into an embrace, Veronica’s curly hair muffles her voice. “I’m sorry, darling. At least he went peacefully.”

Agatha’s sobs verge on grating in their intensity. She snatches the toddler off the playmat and nestles her face into her son’s wisps of hair. The pudgy baby squirms restlessly, his clumsy hand catching in one of Agatha’s hefty earrings. Ever the dutiful butler, Samuel draws a blanket around the young widow’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry for your loss, madam,” he says, gloved hands lingering.

He steps back and bites his lip. For the first time that evening, Samuel finally breathes. Cecilia huffs past the butler, removing herself from the circle of winged-backed chairs, and retreats to the fireplace. Tears fall silently down the teenager’s face, scalding her skin in the blaze of the open flame. She hugs her arms around her waist, her hand gripping
the embroidered handkerchief her grandfather had given her when she’d started crying at his bedside. The pad of her pointer finger traces the delicate crest threaded into the fine cloth. If she were to raise the handkerchief to her face, she knows the scent of her grandfather’s cologne would linger in the fibres.

Her deep breath is interrupted by the hiccuping of her suppressed sobs. Frederick stiffly manoeuvres out of his wife’s embrace, finally planting both feet in the parlour. He collapses into the nearest loveseat, unbuttoning the top of his salmon polo. Veronica lowers herself into the seat at his side with a furrowed brow, the leather squeaking beneath her.

“Would you like me to call someone?”

“Who?” Jonathan scoffs, rubbing his red eyes.

He leans forward in the pinstriped chair, bracing his hands on his knees. The ice in his glass rattles with the movement.

“The bastard didn’t exactly have any friends. He made plenty sure of that.”

Cecilia winces at her father’s words. She’d known the barb was coming—had prepared herself for it in the hours leading up to her grandfather’s death—but tightened her hold on the hanky all the same. It was in times like these she wished her mother was still alive. Most of Cecilia’s greatest memories came from within the hedged fence of her grandfather’s estate. Running up and down the elaborately decorated halls on hot summer days, her mother on her heels. The sound of her grandfather’s laughter rumbling in time with their footsteps. The tension fading from her father’s shoulder and his tender smile when his hands caught her mother and dragged her into a quick kiss.

“We should still call someone.” Exasperation muddies Veronica’s tone.

She looks away from her grumbling brother-in-law and rubs a soothing hand up and down Frederick's arm. Agatha sniffles loudly, using her pinky to flick away the single stray tear gathering at the corner of her eye. Despite having just lost her much-older husband of two years and her splotchy cheeks, her gaze is startlingly clear.

“I suppose we should discuss the matter of my dear Edward’s will.”

Jonathan barks out a resounding laugh. “Yes, let’s.”

Veronica sighs sharply through her nose, her painted nails gripping Frederick tightly at the elbow. “I don’t think now’s the time for that, Agatha—”

The widow readjusts the fussy toddler in her lap, banding her arms around little Andrew’s waist. He whimpers in agitation. “I think it’s the best time, before we get all caught up in the funeral arrangements.”

“His body’s not even cold,” Cecilia whispers to the fireplace.

She wipes her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt, careful to keep the hanky clean, and crosses the room to the rocking chair. The chair creaks with recognition, and the sound brings a small smile to her lips. How many times had she heard that same, familiar sound when her mother would sit in that very rocking chair and pull her into a hug?

“Well, what would you like to discuss?” Veronica asks, her voice contrite with distaste.

Frederick flinches at her side, his face pinching with every passing second.

“There is the matter of my husband’s fortune. And the estate, of course,” Agatha says, her attention glued to the baby boy in her arms. She bounces him mindlessly, biting her lip. There is not a hint of her previous grief evident on her face.

“What about it?” Frederick’s rough question tunes out the sound of Johnathan’s low laugh.

“Everything will go to Andrew, will it not?” Agatha turns her head with wide-eyes and an innocent air.

Though she tries to infuse her voice with gentleness, tension courses through her prim posture. Samuel passes behind her, handing a steaming cup of tea to Cecilia. His blond hair gleams in the flicker of the firelight, the shade remarkably close to that of baby Andrew’s. He retreats back to his station behind Agatha, and busies himself with dusting the collection of pictures frames lining the console table below the window. But that doesn’t mean he’s not hanging on to every word of the conversation.

Veronica sputters, bewilderment overtaking the empathy she gave her husband.

“What makes you say that? Why shouldn’t it go to Frederick? His eldest son.”

“I’m his wife.” Agatha rebuttals, once more wrangling the wriggly toddler.

“Widow,” Jonathan corrects with a tsk, plunking his glass down on the coffee table, just to the side of the coaster. “Welcome to the club.”

Agatha bristles, her lips pursing. “I’m just saying that the inheritance will likely—and should—go to Andrew.”

Cecilia grits her teeth and rises from the rocking chair. She stalks to Agatha and with just a few soothing words, scoops the baby into her arms and returns to her seat. Putting the chair into motion, the tightness seeping into her muscles eases. Within moments of the chair’s swaying, her infant uncle is soon fast asleep in her arms. Samuel halts in his dusting, his voice bitterly saccharine. “Mr Thayer informed me earlier this evening that he left a copy of his will in his private office. I would be happy to retrieve it.”

Agatha’s pleased smile quickly falls as Frederick shoots up out of his seat.

“Absolutely not!” His exhausted eyes study the faces of the room, his fingers twitching at his side.

At the slight pressure of Veronica’s hand slipping into his, he takes a steadying breath. “I’ll go get it.”

Jonathan leans over in Ceclia’s direction with a sarcastic grin and hazy eyes. “You, know, this is better than some of those reality shows you love watching.”

“Samuel is perfectly capable of getting it, Frederick.” Agatha smooths her chignon and places her folded hands in her lap. “Please, why don’t you sit back down—”

“I don’t think so,” Frederick sneers. Red infiltrates his cheeks, sweat breaking out across his forehead “I don’t trust either one of you to even look at the will.”

The room freezes, save for the flickering of the flames and the steady rising and falling of Andrew’s small chest. Old patriarch Edward would likely roll in his still-warm grave at the sight.

“What are you saying, Frederick?” Agatha asks through pursed lips, Samuel’s shadow looming behind her.

Frederick’s jaw clenches in an effort to contain his accusation. Veronica, however, does not possess such reservations. Her gaze strays to the butler, honing in on the anxious fidgeting of his fingers and the tension lining his neck. “Knock it
off, Agatha. We all know why you married Edward. Just like we all know how Andrew came
to be.”

“How dare you!”

A flush blooms in Agatha’s cheeks and spreads down the column of her neck, splotching her chest. Her fingers claw at the armrest, the tips of her fingers paling.

“You have no right to speak to me this way!”

Jonathan’s stark laughter chimes through the parlour, echoing through the halls of the estate. Cecilia’s chest tightens at the sound and the rocking chair ceases to move. Andrew stirs in her arms and Ceclia swallows thickly as she runs a shaking hand down his back.

The last time she’d heard her father laugh like that was when her mother died. When his fit of laughter subsides, Johnathan leans back into the cushions of his chair and grins madly. He stares down every person in the parlour.

“Frederick, you are a cheating son-of-a-bitch that came running to daddy to help cover up your affairs. Veronica, get off
your fucking high horse already—we all know you’ve shopped yourself into debt. And lovely Agatha—” A dangerous gleam flashes across Johnathan’s eyes “—I believe my broke sister- in-law just so-eloquently called you a gold-digger that got a little too busy with the butler.”

The room explodes into shouting.

Through it all, Cecilia stares blankly into the fireplace, rocking. Back. Forth. Back and forth. She keeps her hold on her grandfather’s hanky, on the key to the safety deposit box wrapped within it. She’ll never forget the look in her grandfather’s eyes when he gave it to her—the love that radiated from within their dark orbs. Make your mother proud. And she would.

Glancing down at the sleeping face of her infant not-uncle, Cecilia’s lips twist in a smirk.

“If only they knew.”

Rina M. Steen is a Danish-American author and artist. Ever the happily-ever-after enthusiast, she is an avid romance reader and writer with a penchant for the gothic genre. You can find her on social media at @rinamsteen.

‘Cowboy Jones and the Rootin' Tootin' Revenge of the West’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Cowboy Jones was the fastest hand West of the Mississippi and I’d be willin’ to bet East too. He’d walk into a saloon and ‘fore anyone could spit he’d take ‘em out. Yup, he was that fast.

Cowboy Jones liked shootin’. Sharp shootin’, regular shootin’, any shootin’. He’d shoot a loose hair from yer head at 20 yards or clean shoot yer little finger off at 30.

He came out the womb shootin’. Pistols akimbo, he shot his own damn foreskin off ‘fore any doctor could get ter hackin’ at it. That’s what the legends say anyhow. His momma didn’ wannim no more after he did that. His daddy was proud.

Okay, I’m through practicing my southern accent. However, this story is still the story of Cowboy Jones. The reason I chose to write about Cowboy Jones this particular day is the need to grease my wheels. I’ve been on vacation for a week and need to recover my land legs. My land legs of writing that is. I was on a cruise from writing and now that I was back I needed to readjust. So I’m experimenting a little bit and hoping the result comes out fine. We’ll see. Anyway, back to Cowboy.

It’s true what I said before. Cowboy Jones did love to shoot and he shot indiscriminately. He shot his own rabid dog, he shot his mother when they wouldn’t euthanize her and in the end he shot himself. But we’ll get to that when we do.

Cowboy Jones was tall and intimidating. Some estimates say he was six feet seven and others even say six ten. He always wore a black cowboy hat and matching cowboy outfit. He fitted himself with four holsters. Two for each hip and two for each ankle. Rumors said he kept an extra gun under his hat.

He was large for his size too, like Goliath. He was around three hundred pounds and hairy as can be. His weight was well distributed, giving him an appearance closer to Zangief than E. Honda. Rumors say he was bald under the hat, but he never took it off, so it’s hard to say. Even the coroner took the news of his head to the grave.

Cowboy Jones was angry with the world. He came into the world angry. Obviously, he didn’t actually come out of the womb shooting. That’s a legend a la Romulus and Remus being raised by wolves. But I wasn’t there, so I couldn't say with absolute certainty. If I had to guess, I’d say it was legend.

He did, however, come out of the womb with the umbilical cord around his neck, which he tore through with the few teeth he was born with. The doctors were horrified, they had never seen anything like it, his mother wondered what was happening and his father fainted. When all was said and done, he wasn’t screaming crying, he was smoldering mad.

Soon as Cowboy Jones could walk, his father had a gun in his hand. His father had waited all his life for a son and finally got it. His own daddy had died when he was young, so he wanted to get all his fathering in as soon as possible just in case he suffered the same fate. So at two years old Cowboy Jones was shootin’ cans and squirrels and all sortsa things (forgive me for my accent creepin’ in. I can’t help it sometimes when tellin’ sucha story as this).

Having lived past when his own daddy died, Cowboy Jones’ dad decided to teach his boy about the Old American West. He had heard tales in his youth from his grandaddy about the wonders of the west. Wars between Cowboys and Injuns (as his grandaddy said), wrangling horses, hunting buffaloes, diggin’ for gold, spittin’ in spittoons, shootouts in saloons at high noon…

Young Cowboy Jones’ impressionable mind was fascinated. As much as he was fascinated, though, he was pissed. All this glory and adventure and exploration had been stolen from him by urbanization and industrialization. There was nothing left to explore, nothing left to wrangle if ya didn’t have a permit, nothing left of the Olde American West. He started to get his revenge.

As a teenager, Cowboy Jones went ‘round his neighborhood stealing all the carburetors from the cars. He lived in suburbia, a byproduct of industrialization. If he had his way, he’d live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, living off the fatta his own land. But now everything came from the convenience of grocery stores and all the jobs were cushy office jobs in the city. So he stole all the carburetors. Nobody got to work that morning and there was a lotta yelling and head scratching in front of smoking carhoods.

What did this accomplish? Nothing. Cowboy Jones didn’t give a damn about accomplishing nothin’. He was just mad and he took out his anger however he felt compelled to. It didn’t matter to him if people lost their jobs or kept em. The industrial world was his enemy and he was lashing out.

He started growing crops in his yard and taking school off to harvest ‘em. He argued with all of his teachers, saying all they taught was nonsense and of no importance. If anybody wanted some real learnin’, he said one day, come to my house after school. I’ll teach ya how to shoot, how to grow crops, how ta live damnit.

Only one guy did show up and he and Cowboy Jones became the besta friends. This guy was, of course, Cowboy Jones’ notorious companion, Killy the Bidd. At least, that’s what Cowboy called him.

Killy had no daddy. Cowboy Jones Sr. (real name unknown) took Killy in as his own son. Whenever he got back from work, no matter how exhausted he was, he’d be happy to relate old tales or balance an apple on his head so they could shoot it off, no kiddin’!

This went on for some years. Cowboy Jones and Killy the Bidd were like brothers. Killy always stayed for supper and Mrs. Cowboy Jones Sr was happy to make it. Cowboy and Killy lassoed mirrors offa cars, took out carburetors, freed horses from the local fair just so they could wrangle ‘em (and wrangle ‘em they did), and had all sortsa more innocent adventures.

When Cowboy Jones Sr. died, their innocence did too.

Cowboy Jones Sr. grew progressively wearier and wearier over the years. Long hours and little pay all to support his family. He never took a vacation cause he just couldn’t afford it. Over time, he wasn’t able to relay tales or balance an apple anymore. His hair grew greyer and thinner and he could hardly hold an apple, let alone balance it on his head.  One day he never woke up for work. His alarm rang and rang to no avail.

Cowboy and Killy were a wreck. Of course, they were too tough to acknowledge they were a wreck, but whenever they lay alone in their beds at night they wept silently for the departed Cowboy Jones Sr.

Those tears of anguish soon turned to tears of anger.

“It’s this damned system that killed my daddy!” Cowboy Jones said to Killy, furiously pacing and jamming his fist into his palm. He turned to Killy the Bidd, who sat watching attentively.

“Y’know what we gonna do Killy?”

“What?” he responded, almost in a whisper.

“We gonna get revenge…”

What revenge entailed, Killy the Bidd didn’t know. Over the next coupla months, Cowboy closed himself in his room, only coming out to shoot targets or test dynamite. Of course he couldn’t do this in his own suburban neighborhood. He rode his horse out to a secluded plot of land they’d bought with his daddy’s life insurance money. Killy would follow behind on a steed of his own asking questions all the way but never gettin’ answers.           

Killy looked up to Cowboy as an older brother. He was only two years older than himself, but Cowboy acted so grown up that he mighta well been ten years older. He trusted Cowboy and was excited and nervous for whatever plan he was gonna unfold. He was angry about Cowboy Jones Sr too, who he considered his own daddy.

One day, the plan was revealed. Killy the Bidd lay in bed one full moon night, his room dimly illuminated. He was silently crying about the death of Cowboy Jones Sr when something banged on his window.

“Open up Killy!”

Killy jumped up in bed and turned his face from the window, quickly wiping his tears and collecting himself. He threw the window open and hoped it was too dark to tell he’d been crying. Cowboy Jones all but threw himself in.

“Tomorrow, Killy,” he said, panting, “it’ll all happen tomorrow”

Cowboy explained the plan to Killy, pacing and punching palm as before. Killy sat on the edge of the bed and listened intently. Cowboy Jones was a silhouette against the moonlight as he paced, but as he drew his face close to Killy’s it was half illuminated.

“Ya got it Killy? Are you ready?”

Killy the Bidd nodded. He was ready as he’d ever be.

Cowboy Jones had enough dynamite to bomb a city and that was exactly his plan. Over the months he tested different combinations of dynamite to produce the most monumental results. He’d finally perfected his recipe and was headed for his daddy’s old office building.

Killy the Bidd and Cowboy Jones galloped through the city streets, weaving in and out of honking cars and barreling past civilians. They each had a knapsack on the rear of their horses filled with explosives. Cowboy Jones had a rifle slung over his back and his four pistols in their holsters. He was large, hairy, and maybe bald. Puberty had hit him like the charge of an angry buffalo. Killy the Bidd was baby faced yet, but his voice was deeper. They both wore black cowboy outfits fit with black bandanas over their faces.

Out in front of the glass windowed building, they tethered their horses to a bike rack, unslung the dynamite, loosed their pistols and headed inside.

“Excuse me sir, do you have a-” came the male receptionist as they entered. Cowboy didn’t hesitate to shoot him dead.

They strutted across the marble floored lobby, their boots clicking on the ground. Oddly there was nobody else there. They approached the elevators on either side of the desk. Killy went to the right and Cowboy went to the left. They operated in unison. Pressing the button, they unslung the dynamite from their backs, pulled out the long wick and lit a match. They didn’t light the wick yet. The matches burned down and down and down.

Ding.

They touched the matches to the wick and threw the hissing bags into the elevator. A few screaming businesspeople tried to exit, but they brandished their guns, silently telling them to stay inside. They entered the elevators quickly, hit the button for mid-building, hit the door close button, then ran through the revolting doors to their horses.

With practiced efficiency, they untied their horses and saddled up. They rode off away from the building with Godspeed. Cowboy Jones, hunched forward against the wind, took out his pocket watch.

“Thirty seconds Killy!” he yelled over his shoulder.

They rode on. They needed to be at least ten blocks away after the initial explosion, then twenty by subsequent explosions. You see, Cowboy Jones’ daddy worked in an undercover munitions building in the heart of the city. He worked on top secret projects for the Military Industrial Complex developing high efficiency explosives. They figured if such a thing were disguised as an office building, our international enemies would never catch on. So far they hadn’t, but-

BOOM!

Glass and mushroom clouds shot out of the side of the building.

“YIPPEE!” yelled Cowboy Jones, shooting a quick glance over his shoulder at the loudest damned sound he’d ever heard. He couldn’t even hear himself yell over the deafening roar.

Like Lot’s wife looking back at Sodom’s destruction, Killy the Bidd reared his horse to look back. A sickened feeling came into his stomach as he heard the fearful screams of everyone around. People ran around him, abandoning cabs and cars and briefcases to run. Glass, papers, desks and chairs rained down on the streets.

“Killy! KILLY!” Cowboy Jones yelled over his shoulder without stopping. It was no use. Killy couldn’t hear him over the chaos and was too stunned to even if it was dead quiet. There was a ringing taking over Killy’s ears. His vision was growing fuzzy. Police officers were approaching, but it was no use-

BOOOOOOM! BOOOOOM! BOOOOOOM!

Tears stung the eyes of Cowboy Jones as he felt the heat of the explosion on his back. He knew Killy had been incinerated along with anybody else within a twenty block radius. He spurred the horse faster and slapped the reins. Yah! Yah!

Ten miles outside the city limits, Cowboy Jones made his last stand.

His weary horse galloped through a wheat field until they stumbled upon a barnyard. There was a large red barn with doors wide open. The midday sun beat down furiously. Cowboy Jones guided his horse into the barn, where there was an old farmer tending to his horses.

“What the sam hill?” the farmer said when he saw Cowboy Jones coming straight at him. He didn’t have a chance to say anything else because as soon as Cowboy processed he was there, he shot him.

He jumped from the saddle and tethered her to a post. He then stepped over the farmer’s body and slid the large door shut with all his might, grunting and cursing the whole way.

Inside the farmhouse to the right of the barn, the dead farmer's wife was on the phone with the police. She had seen the TV news about the city and knew now what the explosions she had heard were. She was telling the officers that she had just heard a gunshot and was worried about her husband. The police took down the address and several patrol cars were on their way.

Cowboy Jones took frantic inventory of his rifle ammo.

“Shit shit shit,” he said to himself, loading the rifle with trembling fingers, “it wasn’t supposed to be this way, damnit Killy”

He slung the rifle over his back, set his black hat more tightly against his (bald?) head and climbed the ladder to the second floor. He propped open the window above the barn door. Outside, he had a view of the long dirt road to the house flanked on both sides by the fields. There was a large open dirt yard with a red pickup and a light blue hatchback parked imperfectly in front of the two story white farmhouse. In the distance, he heard sirens and saw the burning city.

“Serves you right, you bastards,” he said, staring angrily at the burning city.

The sirens grew closer. The police cars came into red and blue flashing view and he sighted them. He clicked the hammer back. Bam click bam click bam click. One car lost control and was all over the dusty road, then crashed into the field. Two others were still making their way towards him.

Inside of the crashed police car, the officer used the last of his breath to weakly say “officer down,” into the walkie.

“COME AND GET IT YOU BASTARDS,” Cowboy yelled, lighting a piece of dynamite he had kept on his belt.

He tossed it between the two cars that skidded to a cloudy stop. Four doors opened like insect wings and officers jettisoned from them. The dynamite blew, taking the two cars with it in a fiery explosion. A flaming hood landed on top of the barn.

“YIPPEEEEE!” Cowboy Jones yelled, clicking back the hammer and shooting the ground around the police officers. He was toying with his food.

Toof toof toof. The bullets struck the dusty ground around the police officer as he covered his head. The heat from the exploded car had singed his back. Into his shoulder walkie, he yelled:

“Officer down, we are under fi-”

Cowboy Jones placed a practiced shot right between his eyes, then reloaded.

The flaming car hood still burned on the roof. The roof began to catch fire. More police cruisers wailed in the distance. Cowboy Jones peered down to the first floor where the horses were whinnying and going wild. He put his own horse out of her misery. Although he didn’t want to consciously accept it, just like the death of Killy, Cowboy knew he wasn’t getting out of there alive.

An armada of cruisers came over the distant dirt road like a swarm of bees. Cowboy Jones closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He leaned back against the wooden wall of the barn and stretched his legs in front of him. Smoky air began to fill his nostrils and he coughed a bit. His head became filled with the tales of the Old American West his father had told him.

He removed his hat and placed it next to him. He ran a hand over his bald head (gasp!). He turned the hat over and removed the last stick of dynamite he had. This was the stick to end all sticks. His father had taken it from the lab and kept it in hiding (or so he thought). Cowboy didn’t know what the explosion would be like, but he knew his father often talked about its power.

The wood splintered around his head as officers yelled and shot the barn. The flames started licking down towards the window, feeling hot against the back of Cowboy Jones’ neck. He placed his hat firmly back on his head, lit a match and stuck it to the dynamite wick. He placed the stick in his lap as the bullets whizzed around him and sirens wailed and fired crackled and horses whinnied. He thought of the Old American West and smiled. He removed his great grandfather’s revolver from his waist and placed it in his mouth.

His last thought was about the Old American West. 

And so concludes the story of ‘ol Cowboy Jones. We never did get around to him shooting his rabid dog or his own mother or many things. We’ll conclude with John 21:25: And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.

Riley Willsey is a 23-year-old writer and musician from Upstate New York. His short story, "Bus Station," was published on Half and One's website and “The Revenge of the Potato Man'' on Wordsfaire. Sporadic posts and bursts of creativity can be found on his instagram page, @notrileycreative.

Sweetheart

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Sweetheart

“Slit lengthwise, trim off the fat and silverskin, slice into one-inch cubes,” Valeria read off a creased recipe card as she worked her knife into the heart and pushed the scraps into a pile at the corner of the cutting board.

The smell wasn’t as strong as she thought it’d be, but the air was heavy with iron.

“Season with salt and pepper. Massage until salt dissolves into the flesh.” She followed her instructions, evenly coating the meat. “Transfer into a bowl. Add olive oil, minced garlic, thyme, parsley, and onion powder.”

She admired her mise en place as she tossed in each ingredient; the uniformity and organization of small glass bowls with her herbs reminded her of when she first started learning her craft at her grandmother’s hip. Now, unlike her cooking, she found it easy to make what she needed by following her intuition. Potion, poultice, poison—Valeria’s specialty was solution. The oil carried the blood between her fingers, under her nails, and into the gaps of her engagement ring, leaving stains in the creases of her skin. Fingers sticky and curled to the ceiling, Valeria slid the recipe card away from the sink before washing her hands and flicking her wet fingers over a hot copper pan. The oiled surface
sputtered, her sign to lower the flame and tip the bowl’s contents into the pan. She scraped the vermillion marinade off the glass with a rubber spatula and drizzled it in. The warm smell of browning meat covered the metallic scent and lifted wafts of crisp herbs and smoke. She added a few tablespoons of salted butter to the pan and stirred, eyes lingering on the pool of oxidized blood spreading across the cutting board.

While the heart cooked, Valeria punched holes into the film of a container of mashed potatoes, set them into the microwave, and emptied a salad kit into a large bowl. If she’d abandoned anything over the years, it was the need for pageantry. She’d found her shortcuts where she needed them: herbal tea bags had most of what she needed for tinctures, an ice tray of menstrual blood in the freezer removed the need to cut her hand over candlelight, and—as she discovered yesterday—enough Rohypnol in his whisky kept him asleep through anything.

The sound of Marc sitting at the dining room table called her attention back into the kitchen in time to stop the microwave before it beeped.

“Dinner almost ready?” he called from the other side of the wall.

“Just a minute!” Valeria responded, emptying the pan onto his plate alongside his potatoes and salad. She threw only a smattering of greens onto hers and rushed their dinner around the corner.

The table looked nearly the same as when she set it earlier—nice flatware, a glass of Maker’s Mark, a glass of Reisling—the only change was the presence of her too-soon-to-be leaning heavily onto the wooden arm of his dining chair and tapping his fork with his finger.

“Not like you to make me wait,” he chided as she placed their plates on either side of the six-seater table.

“I think I can make it up to you,” she said, turning to the record player he kept against the wall. She thumbed through his collection, then held up Frankie Valli’s “Solo” album—his favorite.

“Good choice,” he said, mid-drink.

She pulled the record from its sleeve, placed it onto the platter, and lowered the needle. The vinyl, after a moment of crackling, played “My Funny Valentine.”

By the time she took her seat, he was already chewing his first bite. She paused, napkin hovering over her lap, and watched closely for his reaction.

“Mm,” he grunted.

He sounded happy. Valeria stared at the line of buttons down his white shirt.

“Is this my mother’s pig heart recipe?”

“Mhm,” she answered, smoothing her napkin and reaching for her wine.

“The woman was dumb as hell, but she could cook.”

“That’s nice.”

“She would’ve liked you.”

She let Frankie’s voice wash over her fiance’s while she eyed his plate. He loaded a buttery dollop of potatoes onto a chunk of heart and scraped it off the fork with his teeth. It was the first of his habits he learned to ignore. She counted his bites, her only relief from his
ramblings.

“We’re gonna start selling girls now.”

It was the first business decision he had made without consulting her. “You told me.”

“I think it’s really gonna take the organization to the next level.”

“You told me.”

“It’s gonna be huge,” he said, exposing his half-chewed heart. Ever since she approached him at his favorite bar six years ago, he had big dreams of criminal enterprise. “You always have ladies here for your business. Know anybody who’d be worth anything?”

She stabbed her fork through the spine of a lettuce leaf.

“I’m joking, relax. We have some coming in a few weeks.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You told me.”

The flat of his hand struck the table. “All of a sudden you know everything?”

He may have changed his name from Marc to Marcello and called an arms-dealing ring his ‘organization’, but Valeria saw him without presumption: a small-time gangster who’d still be mid-shelf if it wasn’t for her.

“You told me all of this last night,” she circled her wine glass with her finger. “When we were celebrating.”

His dark eyes searched her face.

“That’s why I made this special dinner for you.” She sweetened her tone—it was artificial but effective.

He leaned back into his chair. “I did hit the drinks a little hard last night. I can’t remember a thing.”

“We both had too much.”

“Hm.” He lifted his glass to his lips, staring at her through his silence.

Her knee bounced under the table. “I worked so hard on your dinner, hon. Don’t let it get cold.”

He scanned her plate of salad. “Where’s yours?”

“You know I don’t like organ meat.”

“The chef should taste the food,” he stabbed a bite onto the prongs and pointed it at her. Her heels pressed into the laminate floor.

“Taste it.”

She rose to her feet. Her skirt brushed against the tablecloth as she walked to his chair and crouched at his arm. She took the bite in her mouth, staring at the scar across the bridge of his nose as the flavors settled into her tongue. It was tender to chew; easy to flatten and hide
between her cheek and top gums.

Even after swallowing, Marc didn’t hide his skepticism.

“See?” she said, opening her mouth and revealing her tongue.

His glare was cloudy, but he nodded in satisfaction. She tried not to look at his plate.

“Come here,” he said, wrapping his hand behind her head and pulling her lips to his. Her stomach lurched.

“Marcello!” she laughed and pushed on his chest. His wound still hadn’t surfaced. “After dinner!”

“Promise?” he asked.

She took her seat and placed her napkin back on her lap. “Cross my heart.”

He began shoveling food into his mouth. Here was the voracious, greedy eater she had counted on.

“I know you’re not much of a cook, babe, but you did great with this.” It was as close to forming a compliment as he could get outside of “nice ass.”

“It’s very tender, not chewy at all. Kinda sweet. You picked a good pig.”

“The biggest one I could find.”

The wound from last night was opening with every bite, something he didn’t seem to notice. Blood seeped through his white shirt the way red wine spreads on a tablecloth. It was slow and pretty—probably the prettiest he ever looked. A brass crescendo emanated from the speakers followed by a quiet, pulsating beat.

“Ahhhh, here we go!” A smile crossed his face as he threw back the last of his whisky.

“Here’s my song!”

His movements were delayed and languid, his breath more labored. Valeria wondered if this was her work or the alcohol’s.

“You’re just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off of you,” he sang with an annoying amount of charm. “You'd be like Heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much.”

Despite the food in his teeth and paling face, moments like this reminded her of a time when she tolerated him. Maybe even liked him—it still counts, even if it’s short-lived.

“At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I'm alive.” He raised his remaining bite of heart to her. “You're just too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off you.”

She sucked the last of the juices out of the piece she cheeked, taking her time to swallow its rich, peppery flavor. He was right, his mom was a great cook. Her pulse swelled with the sounds of horns and trombones as he inhaled deeply, ready to belt out the chorus. Memories of him singing this part in the shower, in the car with the windows down, and the night they met at the bar flashed through her mind.

“I love you, bab—”

A fit of coughing—a deep, guttural one that sent sprays of blood over the table, across their plates, and onto her face and chest—cut him off. He gasped, trying to choke out the words and save his performance, stopping once he noticed the splatter. As his expression transitioned from confusion to panic, she watched the crimson droplets mix into her wine.

He motioned for her help with hands that became more frantic when she remained seated. His eyes, once clear, coursed with red. A sanguine string of saliva dripped from the corner of his lips.

“Val,” he wheezed. “Help me.”

Valeria tilted her head. Marc pressed his hand to his chest, letting out a shallow groan when he felt the raw, gaping cavity. Ripping the button-up shirt open, he revealed her handiwork from last night. She had sliced him lengthwise, and the edges of flesh curled open, giving way to
broken, unfurling ribs. Shock had set in. It was the first time he couldn’t find his words. She wanted to ask him how it felt when the blade cut him open, when her hand slid under and into his beating flesh, when the drip of black wax sealed and hid the laceration. She wanted
to know if he felt lighter, walking around without a heart all day. She wanted to fill the room with all the bitter, little truths she’d kept under her tongue, rancid and rotting.

Something that sounded like a cross between a sob and a wheeze spilled from his mouth. She let the song play through. His lips emitted faint, raspy words.

“What’s that, hon?”

“You—fucking—“ he choked on the air, heavy once again with iron, “—witch.”

She smiled and stood to walk to his side of the table before grabbing the sides of his jaw to pry it open.

“You... fucking...” She mocked him slowly.

He fought her weakly.

Her tongue swiped the bit of heart from inside her cheek and moved it into her mouth, spitting it down into his, “...Cannibal.”

His eyes were wide, wet, and bursting. One of her hands cupped his mouth shut while the other closed his nostrils, forcing him to swallow.

“Oh, pretty baby, don't bring me down, I pray. Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay,” she sang over his muffled screams, tightening her grip.

“And let me love you, baby, let me love you...”

Jordan Nishkian is an Armenian-Portuguese writer based in California. Her prose and poetry explore themes of duality and have been featured in national and international publications. She has been awarded the Rollick Magazine Fiction Prize and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories. Jordan is the Editor-in-Chief of Mythos literary magazine and the author of Kindred, a novella.