‘Passengers’

                                         Artist - John L Gronbeck-Tedesco

“Passengers”

I met her in Thailand. An accident, the exactness of which escapes me. Could’ve been a lighter. Maybe some tobacco.

Not that it matters—the circumstances in which you meet someone, the how. The important part is the act of meeting itself. The exchange of human pleasantries. The learning and memories, the entropic tune, the breath of fresh air. The gathering of facts, the divulsion of personal details, and the subsequent formation of a friendship destined for impermanence. The acceptance of some new soul into your sphere, even if it be saddeningly temporary.

The meeting.

That’s where the substance really lies.

*

We sat side by side on the ferry, passing a spliff. Studying the darkling waters of the Gulf of Thailand; the moon no more than a glimmer, its fluorescence unable to fight through the oppressive nighttime clouds.

“Reminds me of a Van Gogh painting,” I remarked.

“Who?”

“Really?” I answered, all incredulity. “Starry Night, you know, the suicidal painter who severed his ear?”

Understanding dawned.

“Ah, you mean Van Gogh?”

“Is that how you pronounce it?”

“It is in the Netherlands.”

*

Her name was Lieke.

She was from the small town of Steenbergen in the south of the Netherlands; the third daughter in a family of farmers. Generations of cattle-rearing and cheesemaking, of shoveling shit and bottle-feeding runts, of tilling land and pulling weeds. Generations of dedicated laborers working what land they had.

And she was one of them.

There were a dozen chickens, the names of which I don’t recall. There were pigs too, but they didn’t have any names. She used to name them, she said; although, she stopped when she learned what death looked like, when she heard the blood-curdling scream of boar and sow alike. But now, older and hardened, the slaughter had become as routine and mundane as brushing one’s teeth. She even joked that Canadian bacon was just as likely Dutch. There was a flock of sheep raised primarily for wool, with grazing their secondary purpose. Rarely were they sold for butchering or killed to feed themselves—for even though she had reconciled one animal’s death, neither her nor the remainder of her family could stomach the notion of slaughtering something so young; and, in this nuanced manner, they abstained from the consumption and commoditization of lamb. Other than a few horses, a herding dog and some cattle, the rest of the land was dedicated to botanical life: wheat, tomatoes, feed crops.

She extolled the place, speaking with fondness and pride, and but for one neighboring family, there was nothing but genuine affection expressed.

Yet, the subjects were not proportionately discussed, and indeed this neighboring family occupied as much of the conversation as her family and the farm they tended to. I listened and learned. Of the children she said very little, other than that there were four of them, two sons and two daughters. The mother’s name was Ilse, and she was a strict disciplinarian and, perhaps paradoxically, a spineless zealot.

Other than that, I gathered nothing.

She was too busy talking about the father.

His name was Willem, and his beliefs were as antiquated as an abacus, as outdated as a mimeograph machine. A man as irascible as he was ignorant. A truculent man who loved repeating himself, loudly and long-windedly. He supported Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom, and like them desired a Dutch world devoid of Islam and its practitioners. A xenophobe who arbitrarily assigned blame to the Turks and other immigrants. A fundamentalist, he happily sermonized on the sacrilege of homosexuality. Black Pete was a staple of his Christmas décor, he considered the atrocities in Indonesia ancient history. In general, he believed that the only people of color worth allowing were the ones on national sports teams. He was a proponent of gender norms. He was an altogether distasteful and unpalatable man. A stubborn, prickly vestige of a past best left unrevived.

And yet, he was a man whose ideological principles, although once ostracized, were not dead—they were far from the fringes, and they were spreading like an infection. A moral pandemic where twisted thinking was contagious. Where hate had been normalized. Where it was winning politics. Where it was ubiquitous.

Because of people like him.

*

I understood the anger, the disgust, the shame. I understood the need to release those emotions.

But her reaction was different.

The length at which she spoke of Willem, the subtle seething, the almost unnoticeable agitation, it all suggested something deeper. Something personal.

A family feud beyond repair, perhaps. Or an individual wrong. An interpersonal conflict maybe, between the two of them. She had been equivocal about the children, the mother. Were they somehow involved?

*

Waves lapped at the ferry as we gently waded the waters. Cigarette smoke danced briefly around us before disappearing into the night’s fog.

The thirty minute trip from Koh Samui to Koh Phangan was coming to an end. Already passengers were collecting their luggage and lining up to disembark. We put our cigarettes out and joined the queue.

I felt unsatisfied. We had arrived at our destination, but the conversation hadn’t reached its proper conclusion.

We walked to the street. I was staying in Haad Rin, but she was going northwest to Haad Yao.

Before she went searching for the best priced tuktuk, I asked if she wanted a farewell joint. She shrugged her shoulders and we made our way down to the beach. We took our shoes off and stood in the sand, smoking.

“Why are you so mad at Willem?” I asked.

Lieke took a deep drag, debating.

Then she whispered:

“He took Mila away from me.”

“Who?”

“His daughter,” she said. “He exiled her to Belgium to stay with relatives. We were in love. And now that’s gone, because of him and his perverse beliefs. He ruined everything.”

She pushed the tears from her eyes.

“I loved her,” she wept. “We were in love. We still are.... I still am....”

THE END

Martin B. George is a world traveler and writer. He seeks to connect people through the art of story, or simply make them laugh. A proud member of the LGBTQIA community, his interests include painting, reading and exploring international cuisine. Find him at @the_wandering_nickel on Instagram to follow his adventures.

‘A Promised Forever’

Photographer- Perseverance Fey

I’m being questioned. Words barked in sharp cold tones. But they sound so far away. A distant waterfall of static noise. So unimportant against the memory of her lips on mine. Of her last words.

It had started just like any other day. Another assignment on a night like any other. We’d been debriefed on our target and once dropped off we’d wished each other luck in our usual way; a breath of a kiss. We parted like the sea against the shore, rushed and fleeting, but with the promise to return. Our ritual.

We turned, no longer our true selves, but the emotionless weapons we had been molded into. We fled into the darkness in opposite directions. Good little soldiers following orders. I’d held no fear, we’d find each other again even if something went wrong. If only I had known what would transpire in the next few hours.

She’d been so quiet. Aerona was never quiet.

I’d asked in secret, fingers gently tapping out words onto her pale skin. We’d needed such secrecy, working in such an organization. Breath was precious, and words could be dangerous. It was easier to touch. To skim fingers across flesh, make subtle movements that only we would understand. A twitch of the mouth, the tilt of a head, an altered blink—this was our language.

With a soft smile, Aerona soothed the worry in my chest. Apologising with a quick brush of her lips across my ear. I did not question her again. Why would I?

Everything had been going according to plan. I found myself moving quickly and silently through empty corridors. In one of the larger rooms the scientists and engineers were celebrating their success. Of what, I didn’t know, it wasn’t my job to know. The reasoning of our ‘superiors’ had never mattered much to me. Perfect, obedient soldiers lived. Questioning ones died. Were broken and tossed aside like rancid roadkill.

I arrived at my assignment. The office door was cracked open. I could hear drunken voices giggling beyond. My target had brought a friend. An annoyance, but not a problem.

I waited until a series of clicks sounded in my ear, and then threw the door open. The couple had no time to react. As I rushed in, blood burst from their heads. The bullets flying harmlessly past me. Curtesy of my partner.

I caught both bodies in my arms, thankful for the crimson carpet beneath my feet. Not that it would matter if there had been obvious stains. No one would find the bodies, nor suspect our organization’s involvement. No one ever did.

With a grunt, I dragged the corpses towards the large open window in the back. Without much thought, I tossed the bodies out the window. First the woman and then the man I had come for. I looted the desk; folders and the man’s own personal laptop go into my bag.

As I stood again before the window, a warning click rang out. I swung over the edge, clinging to the side of the building, shutting the window behind me. Not two seconds later the building shakes from the series of explosives I had planted earlier. Sirens blare as I leapt from the building, landing firmly on my feet. I hefted the bodies once more and turned, finding Aerona waiting for me.

She smiled at me. Dark green eyes skimming over my form, as if committing every inch to memory. A sweet unnecessary gesture, for we both knew every inch of each other even without sight. Knew how the other would react to any situation, we could practically read each others’ thoughts.

Many questioned our closeness. Our relationship had never been a secret, but how deep it truly went, well, that was only for us to know.

“Let them think it merely physical.” Aerona had said so long ago. Even in the dark I could tell she was smirking. “They know nothing, and they will never know any more than we tell them.” And I’d been fine with that, no one needed to know, and I trusted Aerona’s plans, even if I rarely knew all the details.

I returned her smile, falling into step beside her, barely slowed by the weights upon my back. Together, we fled back into the night, away from the crumbling and burning building.

We walked for some time. With little navigational trouble despite the lack of light. I could see Aerona, and she would never let me slip or stumble It was easy to fall into step behind, following just at her heels.

Finally, we arrived at the appointed rendezvous. A small meadow cut out of the surrounding woods. I rolled my shoulders under the pressing weight of the bodies.

“Need a hand?” Aerona asked. I nodded distractedly. My breath caught as I gazed upon her. Though covered in her combat gear, her sniper-rifle slung over her shoulder, I couldn’t help but think her beautiful bathed in silver-blue moonlight. A predator known to so few, yet so gentle with me. With some manoeuvring, she claimed the bag and heavy gun from my back.

“You got everything, right?” I nodded. Then I noticed her expression. Those green eyes I loved so much filled with fear, concern, and an emotion I’d rarely seen her wear, guilt.

“Of course.” I said. Brow’s furrowing. But when I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, she cut me off.

“Good.” She muttered numbly. Then she raised her pistol and aimed it at my head.

“I love you.” I’d whispered, so long ago. The words falling from my lips without hesitation onto the skin of her throat. She kissed me in return, long and passionate. And so so sweet.

“I love you too.” Aerona breathed harshly against my lips. Pulling me close, pressing her face into my collarbone. I closed my eyes, content to fall asleep with her in my arms. But she spoke again, tapping out words against my spine.

Promise you’ll always love me?

It took me a moment to translate, but once I did I held her even tighter. Writing my response on her flesh in turn.

Yes. Always.

My heart froze as I stared down the barrel of her gun, eyes wide. This couldn’t be happening. Aerona would never—

“...What are you doing?” I whispered, making no move to disarm her like I’d been taught to do. I’d been shot before. I’d been trained to deal with more pain than that, and if need be I could use the bodies as shields. But I couldn’t move. If it were anyone else...but it wasn’t. I stayed where I was. I wouldn’t ever move against Aerona, and she knew it too.

“I’m sorry.” I saw the pain in her damp eyes, but I could also see her unbreakable resolve.

“Why?” I begged. Mind racing to understand, to find some reason for her actions.

“I can’t.” She replied, eyes shimmering. “I can’t, not yet. I promise I’ll find you again.” She cocked the gun, her hand steady. I moved. Rushing to her side like I had so many times before.

“Don’t—”

She fired. Blackout. Everything stops.

I guess we’re partners now? I’m Aerona.

Do you trust me?

Don’t let them see you break. Don’t let them hurt you.

I will always find you.

Us together forever, right love?

I love you.

When I wake, my eyes meet the bright sterile white of the infirmary. I blink and shift with a wince. Immediately, one of the masked nurses is at my side, checking my vitals and asking all the usual questions about my status. I answer briskly, head full of cotton. I look around dizzily.

“Where’s Aerona?” I whisper. The nurse stares for a full minute before turning back to their tools.

“She turned traitor, shot you and stole the objective.”

They leave then. I’m glad they do. My memory returns sharp and quick, and I’m forced to stifle a cry behind my teeth. I try once more to reason with my thoughts. She couldn’t have meant it, she’d never hurt me, she loves me. But the pain in my abdomen and the dull throbbing at my temple says otherwise.

Later, my superiors scold and interrogate me. I give my report numbly, sitting still and quiet under the barrage of demeaning and biting words. I should be paying attention, but their words themselves go over my head. I’m miles away from here, clinging to the ghost of our last kiss.

I argue in my head, defending my lover regardless of her actions, though I wouldn’t dare voice them aloud, not to anyone in the organization. She’d been sorry. I’d seen the guilt in her eyes. The fear and uncertainty in her actions. Aerona had never been like that, not in the two decades we’d worked together. I trusted her completely, as she did in return. This wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned or done something that would label her a traitor to the organisation. I wonder what they would do if she was caught?

The fear of what they might do to her when they find her, and, on a smaller scale, what they would do to me, burns in my chest. She may have turned traitor, had violently left the organization, but I had betrayed them too. In my hesitation. In my firm belief that I would sooner slit the throats of all the members in the organization before I would ever betray Aerona.

I return to my (our) quarters, lying awake in bed. I press the pillow against my face, catching her lingering scent. All her things had already been removed, possibly disposed of. There, in the choking lonely darkness, I sign my life away in silence.

I would wait for her. Wait for my beloved other half to set me free as she said she would. If Aerona had decided she would no longer support the organisation, neither would I. I will play the obedient soldier. I will relearn to walk alone, to live in the silence that had been my companion before her. I can do that, I can handle anything if it means seeing her again.

Even if I have to bath in the blood and agony I know will come for me.

Rachel Racette, born 1999, in Balcarres, Saskatchewan. Interested in creating her own world and characters and loves writing science-fiction and fantasy. She has always loved books of fantasy and science fiction as well as comics. Lives with her supportive family and cat, Cheshire. Lives vicariously in fantasy settings of her own making. Published in: Poet's Choice - Free Spirit, Coffin Bell. Website: www.racheldotsdot.wordpress.com Twitter: Rachel S Racette - Author

‘Cormorants’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Cormorants

IT WAS HERE at last – Learning at Work Week, the annual opportunity to ease some of the bureaucratic grind and elevate himself, and possibly his colleagues, to a place of greater happiness. In amongst the thicket of e-mails rearranging his priorities, assigning further tasks without renegotiating existing deadlines, he’d already delivered two seminars locally on haiku: Birds (with a plethora of feathery examples from the classical literature) and Fuzzballs (squirrels, foxes and assorted other furry urban-dwellers).

He got them comfortable, ran through a PowerPoint on the history of the form – putting Issa’s randy houseflies to extended use – then broke and invited them to leave the building, walk around outside with their eyes open. Then he led them haiku step by step: observations, connecting images to small line-bursts of emotion, paring it back to an essence that fused the elements into something higher.

Next up was a trip north, to Pitlochry and the fish people.

But first he had to rewrite this damned Education circular. One message responding to the initial issue, bristling with exclamation points, had pointed out its flaws: did he realise it took two long drives, expensive harbourside parking, a return ferry trip and three days in total to get her child to the dentist, from the island in question? Could he possibly take this into account, in the next edition of his little pamphlet? It was a fair cop, but he would soon be done, and leaving mid-afternoon for the Freshwater Laboratory, and tomorrow’s final workshop: Fish.

‘You finished, Neal?’ asked Karen. ‘Need to zip that across to Mal for the stats, then whatshisface to get it set.’

There was an acid note under the banter. He glanced at his watch, then stuck his head over the rim of his cubicle. Two hours, forty nine minutes and – thirty eight – seconds to go.

‘Almost – be right with you!’

Outside, something slithered up to the edge of the abandoned dock, plopped in. A gull honked past indifferently.

He got back to work.

*

There was no travel money for the trip, and the day and a third came out of his holiday allowance. No subsistence, either, so he’d packed peanut-butter and banana sandwiches, hoped to find somewhere cheap in the woolly wilds.

But still Neal felt his spirits lift as he waited for the carpark barrier to rise. The Circular was done, on its way to the printer’s; he would come back to something concrete from the latest stage in his ‘fast-stream journey’. At home, Daniel was working his usual hours – hours paid far better than his own – and he didn’t expect to hear from his partner till he pulled back into the driveway. Neal rolled his shoulder, tuned the radio and got comfortable.

Pitlochry, here we come!

On the back seat was a warm stack of prints. No screen or projector was available, so he’d gone old school: handouts, scratch paper, a box of pencils filched from the School Inspectorate’s stockroom. He’d amended his slides a bit, made them proper handouts, and he smiled as he remembered the examples.

Draining the ricefield –

a fish also

heads home

(Issa)

Or

Old well,

a fish leaps –

dark sound

(Buson)

They were delightful, and he hoped to see some really specific, salty work emerge from the experts. Daniel had shuddered. He was on his way from vegetarianism to veganism – it seemed a lot easier now than years ago – and could see the joy in flying birds, small mammals scuttling around the undergrowth. But fish?

‘Ugh – reminds me of Fridays!’

Craig, the genial organiser of L@WW, didn’t get it either. He’d made Neal a cup of tea, adding three sugars.

‘Birds, alright – majestic, an that. Poetry. Foxes, too. Slinkin around winkin wi’ cunning. But fish?’

‘Well, yes – fish.’

‘Don’t they sorta – ya know, sit there?’

‘Sit there?’

‘Under yon riverbank, or swirlin about a bit in the tank. Swim round. Dinnae do a lot, duthay?’

Neal had scratched his chin, taken a sip of the awful tea. Then it came to him – cormorant fishing!

‘Well, you might have a point, at least in regard to ordinary fish. But we’re talking about Japanese fish. There’s this thing where they hoist up cormorants – ’

‘Seabirds?’

‘Yeah, only on rivers – inland. Hoist them up, tie a sort of snare around their necks, then train them to dive down and yank out the fish.’

‘Don’t they just eat the fish?’

He looked a little less perplexed, though the fish seemed a bit passive in this peculiar miracle.

‘No. That’s where the snare comes in. It constricts them a bit, so they swallow the little tiddlers – that’s their payment, I suppose – but makes them hold the larger fish, the ones the fishermen want, in their gullets. They hoick them out, reset the snare, and start again.’

Craig scratched his chin, took a long draw on his sugary brew.

‘Alright, but yer actual fish, right – ’

‘They’re part of the process, which is interesting. Listen, fishy folk will love it – trust me.’

And he thought they would.

The thought sustained him down the shore and towards the bridge, into the long trek up the motorway.

*

For the first half-hour things were pleasant enough, but after a while he began to feel the effects of the coffees he’d drunk cramming the Circular. After he’d switched to a smaller road, the amenities dried up and a string of brief, tantalising vistas – rolling valleys, low tree-capped hills – opened up ahead. It was uncomfortable; then pressing; then he began to feel like a bag of liquid horrors waiting to burst through from another dimension. He sped up, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Eventually he barrelled round a corner and a sudden turn, large enough to warrant its own traffic-island, appeared on his right. He floored the brake, screeched into a gravel car-park. ‘House of Froward, the sign said. It seemed to be some sort of fancy clothing store, with a visitor’s centre and café attached. Whatever! He locked up and scuttled across the car park across a patio studded with navy-blue umbrellas into the café.

Inside it was small, more like a fish and chip shop than a proper sit down place. Still, at first glance the food looked alright, the prices surprisingly reasonable. But first things first.

Neal beamed at the first of three staff behind the counter.

‘Where’s the gents, please?’

He was hopping from foot to foot to damp down the raging ache in his abdomen.

‘No toilet.’

‘Sorry?’

‘No toilet here. You go to next town.’

‘What?’

But the man had turned away, his two colleagues suddenly attentive to the task in hand.

‘But this is a restaurant!’

Ordinarily, the flinty resistance of the civil servant would have kicked in, and he would have demanded to see the manager – the manager’s manager – about such a public outrage. But if he didn’t get to a toilet shortly he would cause his own outrage, so he fled back to the car and the main road, pulled off as soon as the slightest bit of roadside vegetation offered a minimal screen, and disappeared into the bushes.

A full minute later, with a suspicious-looking red-leaved bush dripping, his hands wiped on the tops of a stand of damp ferns, he stepped back over the low guard-rail and sat for a minute, spent. The anger had gone – well, almost – and in his relief, he looked round, checked his watch. Quarter to six. He still had more than an hour to go. The roadside was quiet, and he could see between two pine trees and the gash in the bushes into which he’d darted to the hills on the far side. The air was fresh; the view (dripping bush aside) quite pleasant, and he felt like stretching his legs.

He did it all the time at Alexandra Quay, but only ever between his desk and Karen’s, or down through the atrium to get coffee. Contrary to his seminar instructions, he usually kept his eyes firmly shut.

Now his feet crunched over gravel washed to the side of the road by passing lorries, and he picked up a stick from a divot in the metal rail, gave it a tap as he passed. It bonged, off-key, and he smiled. At the top of the hill he turned back, determined to forget all this nonsense and get in early to the hotel, perhaps have a beer and put his feet up, leaf through his fishy gems for tomorrow.

At the car he pulled back his arm and sent the stick whickering through the air. It turned at the last minute, revolving in its normal course, and sailed unimpeded between the top two branches.

*

Neal had originally planned only two sessions – birds and fur. Both local, both focused on generalities: the dawn chorus, foxes making sweet love by the bins, blackbirds digging for worms in freshly-turned earth. All the small delights his new-haikuists were certain to have encountered. But Craig scratched his head.

‘Tea?’

‘No, thanks. Happy to slot them in whenever you need them, even pop down the road.’

Craig stirred his plumber’s brew.

‘Look, Neal – I was thinking. You’re one-a my best folk. You do this every year, people enjoy it, and when the sign-in sheets go round, yours fill up richt away.’

‘I enjoy doing it – takes me back to a different life, makes a nice change from Karen, at least for a few hours.’

‘Yeah – I geddit. Should ask her to do ae course on micro-management, next year.’

‘Nano-management!’

Craig grinned. He slurped his tea, held up a finger.

‘But, young man, I’ve a bit ae a dilemma. Most o’the courses – yours, juggling, home-finance, joys ae urban chickens, ya know. They’re here, Edinburgh, in one ae yon two big buildings, or at a stretch, Glasgae.’

‘Well that’s where everybody is.’

‘No everybody.’

‘Ninety percent of them, surely?’

‘I’ll gae ye that. But there’s a few scattered round who get a bit vocal this time of year. Stirling, soma the rurals, ya nae. Pitlochry.’

Neal looked him square in the eye with his best flinty Education Department squint. It did no good.

‘Come on – be good fer ye. The drive alone’s a tonic.’

Neal sighed.

‘What do they do up there?’

‘Fish, mainly, but not, ya know, the out-at-sea kind.’

‘Fish.’

‘Yeah – yer know, lil salty flippers wi the funny smiles. There’s a bloke called Henry Shadbolt pushin fer somethin.’

In the sudden silence, Neal could hear Alexandra Quay going about its sorry business, clueless about birds, furry creatures and fish; knowing little, and caring less. The sound of self-satisfaction hummed on regardless. Craig took a triumphant slurp.

‘I’ll even call Karen for yer, clear the way. Howzat?’

*

Half an hour more, and the road seemed to roll on in pines and vistas and moody grey skies, seemingly forever. It wasn’t unpleasant. Daniel had this huge project, and his company was still primarily working-from-home, so every moment of stress and pressure radiated out from the spare room into the confines of the flat. Neal knew he had to be bringing home an equal amount – of rage, most likely – but could seem to do nothing about it.

Up ahead, a small ‘P’ sign indicated a stopping-place, and he decided to pull off and stretch his legs. The refuge of the road was fine, but he could use some cool and silence – even better, a cup of coffee and a bacon roll. The parking place came up after a stand of trees. There was a wheelie bin, a baby’s stair-gate abandoned in a bush – heaven knows how that got here – and, praise be, a burger van at the far end. He could see another car parked beyond, the driver handing money in through the hatch. He got out quickly and shook out the tension from his legs, trotted down to the van.

‘You’re working late!’ he said. The man inside just nodded, angled his head at the board. Soon Neal had a hot roll and coffee. He walked back towards the car and noticed a gap in the scrub, to the left of the baby gate. It led a short way down a bank, between two pines and out onto a small ridge above a stream. There was a weathered picnic bench, another bin beside it. The trees screened the noise of passing cars, and he sat down to eat with a sense of gratitude for the scene. Just what he needed, right when he needed it. It was not a familiar feeling.

He remembered talking to Shadbolt, the coordinator at the Lab.

‘Aye,’ Henry said. ‘You folk tend to forget us, up here in the woods, but we’re part of government, too.’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt it, Henry,’ Neal said. ‘Not at all. It’s just that – ’

‘Too busy, are ye – wi the big bosses, an all?’

‘Well, yes, but it’s not that. Or not entirely that, you know.’

‘Well, what is it?’

And suddenly Neal was unburdening himself.

‘Well, Henry, it’s a lot of things, actually. To start with, it’s my boss – you don’t really need to know her name. It’s Karen. Karen is a bloody nightmare – nitpicking everything down to the atomic level, and do as I say, not as I do. When I got here I had to call the movers to arrange a date for our stuff to come out of storage. She leans over the cubicle wall. “No personal calls.” Okay – weird, but then she goes back into her own stupid little hole, and makes a call to her car insurer! Then her bloody boyfriend. And – well, you don’t need to know the whole sordid history. Suffice to say she covers all her deficiencies with our achievements, and doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone but herself.’

There had been a rather significant silence on the line.

‘What the hell,’ Henry said. ‘Don’t you fancy getting away for the day?’

Now he sat with a bacon roll on a battered picnic table, pinching and yanking at an awkward sachet of ketchup, sipping at coffee between fruitless attempts.

‘Come – bloody – on!’ he said. On the fourth tug it creaked mightily, then gave up the ghost. A spray of sauce dotted the roof of the roll, and he used the dead sachet to smear it over his bacon, closing up the roll and taking a big bite. In the evening cool it was heavenly, sweet, salty and crispy, all at once. He chased it down with a long swallow of coffee. Under the bench, Neal rearranged his legs, crossing and uncrossing them, then finally jammed both feet on the middle rung. It made him sit up straight and look at the view. A car passed in the background, and he heard the other customer get back on the road. The van seemed to be closing down, too.

Soon everything was quiet.

He had no idea where the picnic-spot was; he could be five minutes from the hotel, or hours, or just outside the city. He realised it didn’t matter. What mattered was the stuff under his fingers: the squidgy packet; the soft roll; the heat of black coffee radiating through the double-walled cup. Even the gnarled wood of the table itself. Someone had chiselled an insult, or an endearment, into its surface – so long ago he couldn’t tell which. He sat still, enjoyed the stillness.

After a few minutes the wildlife wised up, resumed its business. A squirrel dropped to the spongey turf from a nearby tree, did a quick side-to-side reconnaissance, tufty ears pricked up and sleeked back, then dropped to all fours and scampered across the clearing. A blackbird cawed, somewhere out of sight, and what he thought must be a magpie – really just a blur of black and white – streaked across the middle distance like some secret, flashing signal.

Neal smiled. He wished Daniel was here, and not sweating out his latest assignment. Then, just as suddenly, he wished to stay alone. There was something satisfying about this moment, and he wanted it to endure. Perhaps he didn’t get enough of them, or what he did manage to snatch from the constant flow of demands in the office, was insufficient – the sort of observation his seminars tried to banish, in favour of a longer, more dedicated look.

He thought about the cormorants again. That thin silken cord, wrapped just so, in order to allow the bird to follow its natural instinct to dive, to chase and capture, but coming back to the surface, permitting only the smaller fish to slip down its waiting gullet. The rest were caught, trapped like – well, bigger fish – and levered out of its maw into wicker baskets. He could imagine the calls of the men from one flat-bottomed boat to another, the squawks of the birds, the relentless splashing of the waters in the background. He wasn’t sure which of the figures he identified with – the supreme fishermen, sleek and deathly in silent pursuit, or the men standing idly by till simple technology stole the best of the catch.

He'd hoped to convey something of this cultural complexity to his students. They knew all about fish, or so Henry said; their habitats, behaviours, tendencies and characteristics. Just the sort of specific knowledge, derived from close observation, that drove the best, the seemingly-simple haiku whose sparse lines – when written well – conveyed turbulent depths.

But he had reached the bottom of his coffee, and nothing much was happening in the clearing. Another car went by, here then gone, and he thought of the office: its low-walled cubicles and endless chatter; new demands heaped up, one another, on the old; the latest version of the Circular swarming up from the deep with a bellyful of corrections. Suddenly his neck tightened, gorge rising as if squeezed up by some invisible cord.

Neal stood up quickly, dumped his rubbish and got back in the car.

He started for home.

James Roderick Burns is the author of one flash fiction collection, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and five collections of short-form poetry, most recently Crows at Dusk; a collection of four novellas – The Unregulated Heart – is also forthcoming in summer 2024. His stories have twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and he serves as Staff Reader in Poetry for Ploughshares. He can be found on Twitter @JamesRoderickB and his newsletter ‘A Bunch of Fives’ offers one free, published story a fortnight (abunchoffives.substack.com).

Girl with the Flaxen Hair

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Girl with the Flaxen Hair

She was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Her hair was like straw and her eyes were mud. She was a pig’s dream and I loved her. The first time we spoke was when we were kids, catching crawdads in the creek that separated her house from mine. Kids don’t talk all too much, they just smile and play, singing old nursery songs together that they haven’t quite yet outgrown. Then she went to school, and I stayed behind, and we stopped our games. Our games turned into waves; the waves to smiles; the smiles to nods; and then we were strangers. The year was 1932. I had only spoken to her a handful of times since then—her father was the protective type and never cared all too much for me. Course there was no reason for him to give me the time of day. I was their neighbor, but not much of one. I did what I could here and there, but I don’t got much. My home is one bad look away from being just a dilapidated shack and was surrounded by the bones of lonely tools taken by rust and rot. The fields surrounding me, once luscious and profitable, are now occupied by weeds and tan grass, tenants that I could never rid.

When I was a kid, wheat bloomed far as the eye could see. We had a good ol’ horse whose name slips my memory that would go out and yank it up ‘til the sun went down, sometimes sneaking in a few bites for herself. That thing ended up being a sack of bones that my father shot out in the back to put her out of her misery. At least that’s what I was told. He was always mumbling about that “good fer nuthin’ piece of shit”. Sometimes the thought crosses my mind that he just got fed up and fired the gun in a fit of rage. It saddened me, but at least it was only the horse. After that we couldn’t do too much. The fields became overgrown and moldy, and pests ran amuck. Our cat fattened as our stomachs sucked in. We were never rich folk and didn’t pretend to be.

I had a habit of getting up at the crack of dawn so I could watch Addison fixing breakfast. It started as a coincidence, but I just couldn’t help myself after that. I was an alcoholic drunk on her beauty. My eyes must have started to drill holes through their walls and shatter their windowpanes. I always thought of myself as her protector, someone who wants to see the best for her. Once their chickens disappeared—at least their bodies did. The heads were left sittin’ at the bottom of the coop. I wanted to look out for the poor girl and brought her some eggs from my own hens. They were for Addison, but I knew her family enjoyed them too. After that she started waving to me across the way when I would get home, and I would nod back. Farming did not agree with me. So I just worked where I could, finding odd jobs that no one else wanted. I had a jack that would take me into town. It wasn’t a far trip, one that was greatly shortened by the jack when I brought a switch. He was more stubborn that I was.

My favorite days to go out are the ones like these—sunny and bright, warm with a breeze. These days weren’t uncharacteristic for this time of the year, but still always appreciated. I needed to make the trip out to the town, my funds were running low again. Winters are always tough. Everyone just keeps to themselves and it’s too cold to go out and search for work anyways. As I traveled down the barren road, I thought about all I could do if I had more money and said a little prayer. I don’t believe in God, but maybe I would if he sent some luck my way. My mother, God rest her soul, told me stories of how my father used to care for her. He’d come home from a long day of work singing and dancing and they’d swing me around so that I would laugh until my throat was hoarse. I was too young to remember. “Amazing Grace” melted off my lips as I rolled into town and tied the jack up to a post. I went to every single shop to see if anyone had some work that I could do. A few dollars was all I could get, but I was grateful. This routine repeated itself until the jack brayed with hunger. I saw Addison walking out of the post office with her father and the world seemed to stand still.

He was a fat man without any defining features. It seemed like everything that was not her was simply foreign. I could feel my eyes narrow and my heart beat. If I didn’t know better, I coulda swore I was drooling. I just stood there in front of the pair until we were almost nose-to-nose. I would have kissed her if I was worse of a man. Her father cleared his throat.

“’Scuse me,” my words were calm, but I was brewing a fresh pot of anger as I stepped out of the way.

I watched the two leave and the fat man turned around and gave me a nasty look. There’s many things I coulda done if I were a worse of a man, but I’m not. Watching her leave was a terrible feeling. The sun licked my skin like fire on this August day, but I continue to clench my jaw and bear the heat. There’s not much that can be done. I’m damned in the winter and damned in the summer. Sometimes I feel jealous of the old horse. The fear of being shot was never one I was a stranger to. Most of my memories of my father include a gun. He would come back at night, staggering ‘cross the floor, knuckles bloody, waving a revolver in the air. I would hear my parents yelling about money and shots would ring out, but never anything fatal. Always damned. I walked over to the creek that Addison and I once played in to dampen a rag to put over my neck. It was barely a trickle. I stood there and stared at the water and for a split second, the thought of pushing the fat man’s face down in it flashed through my mind. I looked up and saw Addison with a man. I had seen him around before, but we had never spoke, and he had certainly never spoke to her. He looked stupid with a shit-eating grin and arms that were too long for his torso. The way they laughed together was vile. I could only wish that she was laughing at him and not with him. She stopped the banter and waved when she noticed me. I did nothing. That’s something they never teach you when you’re young—the pain of seeing your lover with another man.

I used to beg and beg my father to go into town with him and sometimes he would take me. We would go into a five-and-ten owned by an ugly lady with a giant mole. Least I think it was a lady. My father would yell at me to behave as he went to the back, he said he was “gunna go ‘cross the street real quick-like”. The sign on the building said it was a tearoom, but I only say a couple ladies go in and out. It was mostly disagreeable men with eyes like rats. When my father came out, he always seemed cheerier. Fists never flew when we got back home, but still my mother (the Lord bless her) would cry and cry and cry…

I kept staring at Addison and gangly man. The fat man came out and stared me down, his eyes daggers. Maybe he could read my thoughts, maybe he was still mad about the chickens. I can hear the jack’s brays from inside my house. He was family to me. I hadn’t been talking to nobody but him lately. Going outside has become a chore when all I can think about was her. It just ain’t right. I know I’m a good man, but I just don’t feel like one when everyone walks out. Even one day the jack will run away, or I’ll have to shoot him out in the back like the horse, too. These thoughts all circled around my head, making me dizzy and confused. It was debilitating. They spun faster and faster and faster.

I sat and thought, and my face twisted up until it was unrecognizable and wet. A cold breeze ran underneath the floorboards of my house, tickling my feet and reminding me that I am alive. It let me know that while life is exasperating, it sure is beautiful and I’m lucky to be here, living next to my future bride. That feeling of peace was quite something. I remember how my mother felt a similar feeling of peace once. She was beautiful woman who fell ill before I even saw my teenage years. Mama used to be Her body began to ache in a way where she said she felt as if she were turning into a rock, her forehead was as hot as a coal, and she shriveled up into a pile of bones. A doctor came out once and told us to keep our distance, because this disease was taking many. I never wanted to stay away from her or be apart, but every time I snuck into her room, my father would yank me away so hard my arm would bruise. She always gave me the softest smile when I left, so meek and demure. Helpless.

The last time I saw her, she was gasping for air between fits of coughing. I stumbled into her room, scared of whether my mother would be there or if she would have disintegrated. That look in her eyes was one I could never forget. She must have known her time had come because I had never seen someone quite so at peace with the world. She looked genuinely content for a woman about to pass on. A smile left her lips and pulled me towards her. I clung onto her arm and cried all night, until I was once again yanked away. The next day we put her in the coffin that my father and I had built a few days earlier.

Life sure is a strange thing.

The clock ticked by slowly. It was already November. Addison and the young man were betrothed to wed. I found out when I went into town to find some work and I saw the pair. A beauty and a gangly beast. They were surrounded by people young and old, congratulating them. A load of horse-shit if you ask me. For a split second my gaze caught her eye and I thought I saw something in it. An apology maybe? Or longing? Did she know that she had made the wrong choice and I was the one that she was supposed to be with? How could a man with such a stupid smile take care of her, and how could the most beautiful woman in the world actually like a man with such unruly limbs?

I knew in that moment that she did want to be with me. I stood there and stared at the couple until the surrounding people’s looks to me became unsettling. My eyes were wide, glazed and unblinking. Thoughts raced through my mind like dogs, but I still felt peaceful, at ease. I am the picture of serendipity. A deep sigh escaped my lips. My chest rose and fell with the breaths that gave me life.

Breathe In,

Out,

In,

Out.

My feet carried me home, but I had no recollection of the movements I had just made. It felt like I was floating, my body was in control, and I was only a passenger along for the ride. The sole passenger on a lonely train. The thoughts that my mind produced in that time I can’t recollect, but I cannot imagine they were those of a good man, with how hot my brain felt.

My house was cold, combating the heat that was escaping my body and cooling me down to a temperature where I could survive. The house started to look vile to me, a memory of what was and what could have been. My father had left years ago when I was a scrawny young cock. He opened the door, looked at me, and disappeared forever. His gaze was cold and lacking in any emotion. The lack of his regard for my well-being showed that his heart had never been there. It was as hard and moldy as a knot of wood left in the rain. I never saw him again. I can only assume he’s dead—or at least I know he is dead to me.

In,

Out,

In…

The wind was howling with anger, furious to be alive. It was a welcomed alarm; the wind’s fury was invigorating. At one point in my life I would have said the wind was as angry as I was, but that is no longer true. I have found peace and I have found how to get to where I belong in life.

My feet carried me across the way to the house where my future bride spent most of her time. I pursed my lips and whistled once again. Raps on the door came from my fists and the ever-beautiful Addison answered. A confused look swept across her face, changing to the characteristic welcoming smile of any woman that properly belonged in this town, and her eyes crinkled. I had never noticed her crow’s feet before.

My body carried me, and I was no longer in control. Shots rang out, clearing the neighboring trees of any birds that nestled inside. Crows screamed and flapped their winds, intrigued by the commotion. I turned around and saw the fat man running towards me with a shotgun he was threatening me with. An old Winchester. Yelled as he saw Addison hanging from a tree next to me by a rope necklace I crafted special for her.

“Damn you! My God, damn you!” His sobs boomed.

I heard one last shot. My ears rang and I fell to the ground. Above me I could see my bride, her face white and pure, sleeping peacefully as the howls of the wind pushed her side to side. My eyes rolled back into my head, and I drifted away. We would be together always, and it was our love that could never die.

Amazing grace

How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me…

A.H. Brewer is a Pacific Northwest native author who currently resides in Japan. She has always been drawn to dark and grotesque, which is reflected in all of her works. She is excited to share her debut work as a testament to her lifelong love affair with the art of storytelling.

‘Breaking It Apart’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Breaking it Apart

Hemant, tired of his lawn mower acting up every time he tried to start it, pulled the cord once more. This time, the lawn mower roared to life.

I don’t like doing this, Hemant said to himself as he pushed the mower toward the far side of the backyard. Here the property sloped down to the ditch behind the fence, making the task more physically strenuous.

Knocking Hemant off his thoughts, Neelam’s voice bellowed from inside the house. “Hem, we’re getting late. Are you going to get ready?”

Hemant, who had stopped mowing momentarily, resumed as if he had not heard her. He wondered if he would put his daughter on the deck by next spring, and let her watch him mow the lawn. Would the noise of the mower scare her? Maybe he should get a quieter one by then. Or, he should buy a big automatic mower like Sean had recommended.

One of those John Deere tractors, he told himself. It immediately reminded him of Tim “the tool-man” Taylor from Home Improvement. Recalling Tim’s obsession with bigger, more powerful equipment, Hemant tried one of Tim’s trademark ‘ho-ho-ho’ grunts.

Not quite there, he muttered, critiquing his grunt.                        

“Hemant, are you listening? I am screaming my lungs off here.” Neelam was standing on the outdoor deck now, arms akimbo.

Now that she was facing him, he could not pretend to not hear her. “I’ve been screaming my head for the past ten minutes, and you’re acting like I don’t exist,” she said, brushing the loose, wet hair off her forehead.

Hemant shut the lawn mower down. “Well, I couldn’t hear you with the lawn mower running.”

“Obviously, this lawn-mowing thingy is more important to you than keeping my doctor’s appointment!”

Hemant left the mower on the grass and began walking toward the house, while Neelam turned her back and went inside. Hemant paused to wipe his feet on the deck mat before stepping inside.

 Neelam’s eyes blazed as she stared at Hemant from the couch.  

“If you aren’t interested in attending the pregnancy and Lamas classes,” she said, “you could have told me that ...”

“I never told you I wanted to attend those classes,” said Hemant without raising his voice.

“So, are you not going to come with me?”

“I didn’t say that either.” Hemant’s voice was flat and devoid of emotion. “I’d much rather prefer to drop you off at your doctor’s.”

“So you are not going to be there at the delivery? Is that it?” Neelam walked up to the wall and banged on it with clenched fists.  “God, why do I always have to be this miserable!” She clutched her head and began to cry.

Hemant waited for his wife to calm down a bit. “I didn’t say I won’t be at the hospital,” he said, turning around to close the backyard door behind him.

“How useful will you be if you are not going to take the lessons?”

“All I said was I would like to take the classes at my convenience.”

“When? After the baby is born?”

Hemant stood silent and still like a petulant child, his hands in his sweatpant pockets.

“Hemant, classes are not available at your convenience,” Neelam continued.

“I will find one.”

“So, you expect me to attend these classes alone?” Neelam stomped her feet. “When every fucking slut who shows up there has either their boyfriend or husband tagging along?”

“So that’s what this is all about. Announcing to the world that you have someone to chaperone you around?”

Neelam screamed—her screams loud enough to be heard down the street.

Sean, Hemant, and Neelam were at King’s Island, having just finished the annual spring picnic for the employees of GE Engines, where Hemant and Sean worked. On their way home, the three stopped by one of the outdoor restaurants for a drink.

Sean watched Hemant, whom he had known since their graduate school days, help Neelam onto the low lounge chair. They made such a cute couple, he thought.

“Have you guys decided how many more kids you’d like to have?” asked Sean Mitchel after Hemant had taken his seat. A thin smile played on his lips.

“Maybe like five,” said Hemant, watching a young mom helping her toddler onto a swing behind Sean.

“What?” said Neelam, her voice excited and shrill while Sean laughed.

The toddler took a big arc on the swing, and the mom and the child broke out in delighted squeals.

Hemant smiled at Sean. “How about you, Sean?” he asked. “How many are you going to father? Like ten?”

“Ten? Me?” Sean frowned, his face turning serious. “I’m not planning on having any kids, buddy.”

“I wonder how Amy feels about that?” said Neelam, smiling. “Seriously, you should reconsider, Sean. It will be the best experience of your life.  Even Hemant used to be so blasé about becoming a dad. But now, he’s all excited.”

Glancing at Hemant, she added, “Of course, he doesn’t like to show it.”

Sean nodded. “Drawing emotion out of Hemant is like drawing blood out of a kid.”

“Tell me about it,” said Neelam while Hemant cupped his mouth as if trying to stifle a yawn.

Neelam and Hemant—who grew up in India— and Sean, who grew up in a rural town in western Pennsylvania, attended grad school together at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Now, they lived in the same neighborhood in a Cincinnati suburb.

“When exactly are you due?” asked Sean, watching Neelam squiggle uncomfortably in her seat.

“Long way to go,” said Neelam, looking at Hemant, who was watching the trees around him glow in the sun, showing off their bright green newborn leaves.

 “Another four months. October fifteenth, to be exact.”

“Nice to see your excitement,” Sean said to Neelam before turning to Hemant, who was still lost in the park's scenery. “Whereas this guy… he always keeps his cards close to his chest.”

Neelam threw her head back and laughed. “Just like Hemant, right?” Brushing a strand of hair off her face, she added, “However, he’s more expressive at home. More so ever since we learned it’s a girl. He always wanted a girl first, you see. And I am glad I got it right.

“You know,” said Neelam, staring at her well-manicured long nails. “I didn’t want to get pregnant immediately after graduation, but Hemant was insistent.”

Hemant wore a wry smile on his face.

 “How do you put up with such an unemotional robot?” asked Sean, looking at Hemant picking up his beer from the tray.

When the waitress withdrew, Neelam said, “Boy, am I glad someone else appreciates what I put up with!”

The waitress arrived with their order of drinks and nachos, and everyone picked up their drinks.

Sean took a quick sip of his beer, and asked, “Have you guys picked a name for your daughter?”

“Of course,” said Hemant.

“I bet it is not something simple like Arianna or Brianna.”

“You’re correct. But are those simple names?” Hemant frowned.

“Absolutely.”

“Maybe simple for you, but not for our folks.”

“Well, what is it going to be?”                                                              

“Mpumelele Mbangwa,” said Hemant, without missing a beat.

“What?” Sean’s jaw dropped.                                                               

Hemant grinned. “Mpumelele Mbangwa,” he repeated.

“Mpu WHAT? Is that a name? And how exactly do you plan to spell it?”

“M-P-U-M-E-L-E-L-E and M-B-A-N-G-W-A.” Hemant patiently spelled out the Zimbabwean name.

“Are you sure you can spell your daughter’s name the same way the next time I ask?’

“Absolutely.”                                                   

“Jesus Christ. Mpum...” Sean gave up. “Mpum, whatever. Are you telling me your folks find that easy on the mouth while Ariannas and Briannas are tough?”

Laughing, Neelam sprayed the iced tea she had just gulped.

 “Without a doubt,” said Hemant.

“My tongue would be up in knots if I got the name right even once. For god’s sake, guys, she’s an American, right? Why can’t you give her a reasonable American name? At least leave her with a middle name like Maggie or Michelle.”

“Good suggestion, Sean,” said Neelam, turning to her husband and running her fingers over his forearm. “We should think about it, Hemant.”

“Sure, we’ll consider that suggestion, Sean,” said Hemant.

Neelam, who had planned to do some shopping before going home, finished her iced tea and got up

“You guys enjoy your bromance,” she said. “I have some chores to run.”

Sean watched Hemant walk Neelam to the parking lot, holding her hand. He had known them both for four years now, and knowing that Hemant and Neelam had known each other since childhood gave him a warm feeling.

Sean ordered a second Margarita.

When Hemant returned to the table, Sean said, “I like how you two are so good for each other. You have such great chemistry.”

“Thanks,” Hemant said, smiling as he flopped down on the chair he had vacated a few minutes earlier. I'm sorry about that, Sean. Neelam doesn’t know you broke up with Amy.”

 “No issues. I guessed as much,” said Sean, sipping his Margarita. “Talking of breakups, I’m terrible at breaking up,” he added

“You’re kidding, right?  You have had at least three new girlfriends in the last year, haven’t you?”

“Maybe.” Sean giggled. “Still, I am terrible at breaking up.”

Hemant chuckled, hailed the waitress, and ordered a Bud for himself.

“I’m not kidding,” Sean continued. “After I told Amy that we were breaking up, I had to face a barrage of tears and accusations from her. At the end of it, I felt so guilty and bad, do you know what I did? I went and bought a ring and decided to propose to her that weekend. Then I called her on the phone. But by the time I was done talking to her, thankfully, we were both hopping mad. She said she never wanted to see me again. I went ahead and returned the ring.”

Hemant shook his head. “Phew, that must have been a pretty close call.”

“Tell me about it. It gives me the creeps when I think about it.” Sean shook himself up and heaved a big sigh. “I came this close to being tied up with that fruitcake for the rest of my life.”

“How are things between you and Katy?” said Hemant. Katy was Sean’s current girlfriend.

“So far, so good,” said Sean.

The following weekend, Hemant stopped by Sean’s place. Hemant knew that Sean’s mother and sister were visiting him that weekend but Sean had asked Hemant to come over and help him prepare a marketing PowerPoint presentation for the coming week.

Sean opened the door and told Hemant that his mother had stepped out to run a few errands. Could they wait for her to return to start? Then, they could go to a coffee shop and work on the slides.

“Fine,” said Hemant. “But why don’t I take a cursory look at what you got while we’re waiting for your mom.”

Sean left Hemant on the living room couch with his laptop and disappeared upstairs.

 As he skimmed through the slides on Sean’s laptop, Hemant lifted his head from his laptop when he heard a little girl’s voice: “Sean, can I come and watch?” There was no one at the top of the stairs.

“No. Didn’t your mom tell you to stay in bed?”  Sean answered from his room upstairs.

“But I’m bored,” the girl protested. After a moment of silence, Hemant heard footsteps, forcing him to look up.  A girl who looked about four or five years old, wearing a pink Winnie-the-Pooh T-shirt and yellow sweatpants, was watching him from the top of the landing.

“Sam, we are working,” said Sean as he walked down the stairs to the couch and sat next to Hemant.

“I won’t bother you. I promise,” said the little girl.

“Stay right in your room where your mom left you, Sam,” said Sean. “Remember, those were her orders,” said Sean.

“You’re mean.” Sam stared at Sean, her voice choking. “You are always mean to me.”

Hemant watched the girl stare at Sean, her lips pouting and then turned his head to see Sean smiling awkwardly at her.

“What’s your name?” Hemant asked the girl who disappeared inside without answering his question, making Hemant wonder if she was accusing him of taking Sean away.

“What’s her name?” Hemant turned to Sean.

“Samantha. Sam,” Sean said, his eyes focused on the screen. He then began to read aloud the bullet items from the first page of the PowerPoint presentation. 

Reviewing the slides, Hemant occasionally glanced upstairs to see if Sam was back. She was not.

A car door slammed shut on the driveway.

“That’s Mom,” said Sean, closing his laptop. “Let me use the restroom, and I’ll be right back. We can go over to Champs and review the slides without distraction.”

Sean waited for a woman, lean and with long blond hair, seemingly in her forties, to push open the garage door with her shoulder before walking in. She held brown Marsh grocery bags in both her hands.

“Mom, Hemant. Hemant, Mom,” said Sean, getting on his feet and heading upstairs.

“Hi, Hemant.” Sean’s mother looked at Hemant after dropping the grocery bags on the floor to shut the door behind her.

“Hi,” said Hemant, walking toward the door to the garage. “Can I help?”

“I’m fine,” she said, bringing two of the bags closer to the fridge.

But Hemant still walked to the kitchen, picked up the remaining bags on the floor near the garage door, and followed her to the refrigerator.

“Did Sam bother you and Sean?” asked Sean’s mom.

“Not at all,” said Hemant before noticing that Sam had appeared in the kitchen. Her curly blond hair was all over her face, and she was clutching tightly to her red-stuffed Clifford dog. The tip of her nose was red and showed signs of rashes. He dropped the two bags at Sean’s mom's feet and looked at Sam.

“Is that your name - Hammond?” Sam asked.

“That’s right. Do you not like it?” said Hemant, brightly.

“But that’s an American name.”

“I am an American. You don’t think I am?”

“Well, maybe.” Sam hopped away to the living room. “But you look more like Shanti’s dad.”

“Shanti, who?” Hemant heard Sean’s mom giggle as he followed Sam to the living room.

“My friend at Sterling Heights,” said Sam.

“And Shanti is not an American?”

“No! She’s Indian.”

“I see. Well, what can I say?” Hemant exaggerated a shrug. “I’m Hammond, an American who happens to look like an Indian.”

“Fine.” She paused to think. “Are you busy?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Sam,” Sean’s mother interrupted immediately. “I told you to be quiet and not bother.”

“She’s not bothering me at all. I have all the time until Sean gets ready,” said Hemant.

Sean’s mother poked her head from behind the fridge and smiled at Hemant. “Thank you,” she said. “That girl just loves attention.”

“Who doesn’t?”  said Hemant as he followed Sam upstairs.

“What would you like to do?” Sam turned around on the stairs. “You have two choices. One, we can play with Clifford. Or I can draw pictures for you.”

“I prefer the picture-drawing thingy,” said Hammond.

“Sure, if that’s what you want.” Sam paused to sneeze before laying down her Clifford on the landing. “I forgot to bring my crayons, but we can use these marker pens. Do you mind if I use marker pens?”

“Not at all. Are you sick or something?” asked Hemant.

“I have Bronchitis,” Sam said after wiping her nose with the tissue she had in her pocket.

“Oh!” Hemant’s voice didn’t conceal his surprise or his concern.

“You didn’t know that?”

“No.”

“Can’t you see my nose is red?” Sam said, raising her eyebrows at Hemant.

“Sorry, sweetie, I didn’t know red-nose meant Bronchitis. So, does Rudolph have bronchitis?”

Sam allowed herself to smile. “You are funny.”

“Thank you.” Hemant sat down on the hardwood floor above the stairwell. “Do you have to take a lot of medicines?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you see all the medicines on the kitchen counter? They’re mine.” Then she pointed to the dining table downstairs. “Those are my inhaler things.”

“Do you like your medicines?”

“Eew, I hate them.” Sam scrunched her mouth. “Especially that white one. Amoxicillin. It’s yucky.”

 “Is there any medicine you like?”

“Mm...” She looked up thoughtfully. “Robitussin, maybe. Especially the cherry-flavored one.”

Sam sat and got busy drawing with an orange marker pen.

“Can you guess who it is that I’m drawing?” she asked, momentarily looking up.

Hemant furrowed his brows in deep contemplation. “Sorry. I give up,” he said.

“Hello, it’s Abe Lincoln. Can’t you see?”

Hemant decided to be indignant. “How is this Abe Lincoln?” he asked.

“Can you not see?” She pointed to the chin with her marker pen. “He has a beard. It has to be Abe Lincoln, right?”

“Is that so?  Well, I didn’t realize that was a beard. I thought those were ants crawling up a guy’s chin.”

Sam looked at Hemant sternly and then broke into a big giggle. “You really are funny.”

“You think so?”

Sam nods. “Yes, you are.”

“All right, Hemant. I’m ready,” said Sean, shoving his laptop into its bag and stepping out of the master bedroom. “Shall we go?”

“Can I complete this picture for Hammond?” Sam’s face paled before she could complete her question. “Oh, never mind,” she added.

“No, that’s all right. I’ll wait,” said Hammond before turning to Sean. “Sean, give me a minute. I want Sam to do something for me.”

Sean walked past them and down the stairs while Hemant waited for Sam to complete the picture.

Sam colored her picture frantically before handing it to Hemant. Then she waited for his reaction, putting the bottom of her marker pen in her mouth.

After running his eyes over the picture, Hemant said, “Nice. Can I take this with me?”  

“Of course,” she said taking the marker out of her mouth. “I drew it for you.”

“Thank you.” Hemant tousled Sam’s hair and descended the stairs.

On his way out, Sean’s mom followed Hemant— presumably to close the door. He showed her the picture. “Look!” he said. “Sam drew this for me. A picture of Abe Lincoln.”

Sean’s mom snickered. “I’m glad you like it. She loves drawing pictures.”

“By the way, I’m Darlene,” she said, extending her hand.

Hemant grabbed her hand and said, “I’m Hemant, but you already know that. Nice meeting you.” He opened the door to hear the sound of the car engine running in the driveway.

As Sean pulled out of the driveway, he looked like he had something on his mind.

“Sam’s a cute kid,” said Hemant. “She talks nineteen to the dozen.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” said Sean, listlessly.

“Where’s your sister, though?” said Hemant. “Did she step outside, or did your mom just bring your niece with her?”

“What?” Sean took his hands off the steering wheel and threw them in the air. “What are you talking about?”

“Sam is your niece, your sister’s daughter, right?”

“My niece indeed! Sean snickered. “I wish! Sam is my sister, dumbo!”

“What?” Hemant’s eyebrows arched up almost an inch. “Sam is your sister?”

“That’s what I said,” said Sean.

“You are not yanking my chain, are you? She’s a little too young.”

“Are you kidding? Of course, she’s fucking young. Like nineteen years younger than me. Can you believe that? I have a sister who’s young enough to be my daughter.”

At Champs, Sean and Hemant sat at a relatively quiet table, away from the crowds that had collected in the sports bar to cheer the Cleveland Cavaliers playing the Chicago Bulls. They worked on the corner table until Sean was happy with the slides. Sean closed the laptop and smiled, pulling the power cord from the wall outlet.

“That must be really neat,” said Hemant, stretching his back and glancing at the game on the TV. The Cavaliers led by six at the end of the third quarter.

“I didn’t know you have such a young sister,” he said and then scrutinized the puzzled expression on Sean’s face.

“Neat, huh?” Sean wiped his face with a napkin and snickered. “And you thought she was my niece!

“You never had a baby for a sibling after you were an adult, did you?” he asked.

“No, I didn’t.  But I think it must be wonderful to have a baby sister.”

“Yeah, right. You are confusing a sister for a daughter, dude. Sam was born when I was a freshman in college. What were my mom and dad thinking?” he said before adding, “Actually, I know what they were thinking.”

The waitress stopped by to ask if they needed anything else or if she could bring the check.

“Check, please. We’re wrapping up,” said Sean before turning to look at the parking lot behind the glass wall. Staring at his faint reflection on the glass wall, he added, “I don’t think I have ever held her when she was a baby or entertained her.”

“Hope you don’t mind me asking,” said Hemant. “I’m guessing your parents didn’t plan for Sam’s birth?”

“Oh no! She was planned all right.” Sean wiped a non-existent stain on his chin. “Planned by mom.

“You are so fucking dumb, Hemant,” he continued. “You think all couples are like you and Neelam.”

Hemant shook his head and looked away.

Sean paid the check, and he and Hemant rose to their feet. “Hemant, do you care for a game at the pool table?” he asked.

Hemant nodded.

His parents had been discussing divorce even when Sean and his older sibling were in middle school, Sean recounted while setting up the pool table. Sean’s father was in a relationship with another woman for as long as Sean could remember and he had made his intentions clear to his wife. He would wait for the children to be eighteen and then separate. Darlene had agreed to the plan.

“But mom had her own plans, I guess,” said Sean. “So, just before I left for college, she got pregnant. So Dad is back in the line, waiting another eighteen years for his latest to grow up. How do you like that?” Sean stared at the tip of his cue as he wiped it.

“Can you believe it - a woman plotting to have a baby at forty-two with a man she doesn’t care for, just to make sure she can screw him over?” Sean laughed aloud. “That, for your information, dude, is the Great American love story!”

“What happened to that other lady?” asked Hemant, aiming for the red ball.

“I’ve met her a few times,” said Sean. “Where I grew up, everybody knows everybody. She had already spent a good deal of her life waiting for Dad. She moved out of town once she realized he wouldn’t show up.”

“I don’t like the way my mom drops in on me every now and then with her baby as if this was her home,” Sean complained to Hemant when he dropped by Sean’s house a few weekends later. Sean was building a deck in his backyard, a project that consumed most of his weekends.

“You mean, drops in with your sister?” said Hemant.

Sean, shirtless and sweating, glared at Hemant from his kneeling position. “When my mom is here, she rearranges things. I don’t care about it because I don’t even notice these things. But when Katy is here, she notices and gets hopping mad.  Not that Katy and I are getting along great otherwise.” Sean raised his voice above the drone of the power drill.  “The only thing I like about Katy these days is that she hates my mom more than I do.”

Since spring, Sean’s mom had been visiting Sean frequently on weekends, bringing Sam along.  Whenever Sam was at Sean’s place, Hemant stopped by to entertain her. He walked with her on the trails around the lake in their neighborhood, helped her chase the ducks that lived on the lakeshore, and fed them breadcrumbs.

Sean told him that whenever Sam visited, she asked, “When will Hammond come by?” Hemant was delighted to hear that.

Soon, Sam had gotten comfortable enough to walk over to Hemant’s home and ring the doorbell. Meanwhile, Hemant—who went to his racquet club every evening with religious zeal—occasionally gave up his Squash time to take Samantha to the lakeside or the Park.

“Where is Sam?” Hemant asked, watching Sean hammer one more row of nails on the deck.

“Mom has taken her to the salon or something.” Sean looked up at Hemant and held his gaze.

“You know, Mom was looking for Sam the other weekend, and when she couldn’t find her, she asked me where Sam was.” Sean continued, “And I told her she had gone out with Hemant. I smiled to myself, realizing what I had just said. It sounded like, ‘My sister has gone out on a date with my friend,’ when, in fact, you’re babysitting her. Do you see how ridiculous that is?”

“I don’t see anything ridiculous,” said Hemant.

Sean grinned and got up as if he was done for the day. “You won’t ever. That’s what makes it even more ridiculous,” he said.

The next time Hemant walked over to Sean’s house to pick up Sam, Sean again told him she had gone out with her mom. His eyes avoided Hemant’s.

“Something is wrong, isn’t it?” said Hemant.

Sean tried to hold a straight face but couldn’t help a sheepish grin when Hemant kept looking straight at him. Noticing Hemant was not being distracted by his grin, he dropped it.

“Neelam called, didn’t she?” asked Hemant.

Sean’s face twisted into an uncomfortable smile. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

“Sure,” said Hemant, not really looking forward to hearing the details.  “So what did she bitch about?”

“She wasn’t exactly bitching, Hemant,” said Sean in a placating tone.

“I guess she must have said I was never home and was spending all my time with Sam?”

“That,” said Sean, getting up with a wry smile, “more or less, was the gist of it.”

“Thank God she didn’t call to complain that I was having an affair with your sister. Not that I would put it beyond her.” Hemant covered his face with his hands.

“All right. I need a drink. Let’s go to Champs,” he added.

“Sure,” said Sean, patting Hemant’s shoulder.

“Give me five minutes. Let me go home and change,” Hemant walked to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

When Hemant was about to close the door behind him, Sean said, “Hemant, don’t talk to Neelam about this, okay?”

“I’m not that dumb, Sean. Besides, she isn’t even home now.”

It was another crowded late afternoon at Champs. The Cleveland Indians were on something of a run— a welcome success for Clevelanders after the Cavaliers’ dismal year. Hemant and Sean took a seat next to the window while outside, the trees swooshed in relief at the break from the sweltering heat. The previous night’s rain had brought down the summer temperature.

They ordered drinks, and Hemant began to talk. Hemant’s and Neelam’s fathers had been friends since their college days, said Hemant, and lived in the same neighborhood in Mumbai. Neelam’s father was a well-known businessman in the city who wanted his daughter to go to the US, finish her master's, get an MBA, return, and help him run his business.  While Neelam and Hemant had known each other since childhood and were very close, it was never a romantic relationship. “At least not from her side,” Hemant quickly added. Moreover, Neelam had been in a relationship with Zafar Abbas since her undergraduate years.

“Zafar? That dude from St. Xavier’s who used to visit you guys while we were at Lexington?” Sean put his glass on the table so hard that Hemant thought he broke it.

“Yes.”

“Good fucking lord! I thought he was more your friend than hers when I hung out with the three of you.”

“Well, I knew him through Neelam.”

Zafar was not just a Muslim but one whose extended family lived in Pakistan. Zafar’s grandfather relocated to Mumbai from Lahore, now in Pakistan, before India was partitioned.  During her visit to India last year, Neelam informed her family about her relationship with Zafar.

“Remember,” Hemant said. “Three years ago, Pakistani terrorists, supported by that country’s intelligence agency, had gunned down more than a hundred and seventy guests and security personnel and injured more than three hundred at two five-star hotels in the heart of Mumbai.”

Even without that added incentive, there was not a chance that either Neelam’s dad or her family would bless her marriage to a Muslim, and one whose extended family was Pakistani to boot. Her father told Neelam that she was no longer his daughter if she chose to continue that relationship.

She came back to Lexington seriously depressed. “Or so I thought,” Hemant said.

Months later, Neelam confided to Hemant that she had broken off with Zafar. Hemant and Neelam started a relationship. Her family, and Hemant’s too, were excited to see that they were getting together—something they probably wanted to happen all along.  But before he could get to know Neelam well as a partner, she was in a hurry to get married.

Hemant ordered a third drink, unusual for him. And that, too, this early in the day.

“When we went to India last year, even before our flight landed in Mumbai, wedding preparations were in full swing. Everyone— parents and grandparents and relatives— were like, ‘Your marriage has to happen before you fly back.’  But I was the only one protesting that that wasn’t our plan because Neelam was so totally with them. So much so that I began to suspect that she orchestrated it. As the wedding approached, I even wondered if she really broke up with Zafar because she didn’t want to lose her family, as she told me. Or did she do it because her father had threatened to cut off all her inheritance?        

“But she had stopped seeing that dude before you two became a couple, right?” Sean asked, his eyes hovering over Hemant.

“Of course,” said Hemant wearily. “Besides, he moved to California.”

Sean’s eyes strayed toward the glass door while he chewed his lips.

After the wedding, he did not want to have a child immediately, said Hemant. And Neelam told him that she would make sure that she wouldn’t get pregnant. However, her behavior after she revealed that she was pregnant made Hemant feel that she had planned this as well.

Sitting before Sean, Hemant looked like a boxer who had been knocked out in the first round as he took another sip.

Sean excused himself to go to the restroom. Standing in the urinal and glancing at the artsy graffiti on the walls, Sean felt a surge of helpless anger shoot through him. “Shit,” he hissed, looking at his reflection in the mirror as he washed his hands.

Returning to the table to take his seat next to Hemant, Sean said, “Hemant, I want to tell you something.”

“If it’s advice, hold on to it,” said Hemant. “I’m too drunk to listen.”

“I’m not advising you, shithead.” Sean gently pushed Hemant by the elbow. “What I wanted to tell you was… Sam and I get along fine these days, and I want to thank you for it.”

Hemant looked startled by the first good news he had heard in a while.

“That’s… that’s awesome,” he said. “Actually, I wanted to tell you this. I know it’s weird, but whenever I picture my daughter, somehow, it’s Sam’s face I see.”

Sean put his hands around Hemant’s shoulder and hugged him. “No, it is not weird, Hemant. That’s touching.

“It was when I saw you hang out with Sam and how eager she was for your company,” said Sean, taking the final sip from his margarita and smacking his lips. “I began to think how she must miss having an adult guy in her life. I realized then that actually she does have a dad and an older brother. Just that they both didn’t and don't want her around.”

Hemant looked at Sean, dumbfounded. The waitress stopped by to ask if they wanted anything else. Sean and Hemant shook their heads.

Sean continued, “Mom would tell me she’d draw pictures for you back home in Canonsburg. That’s when I wondered, why hold it against Sam for being my parents’ kid? In fact, she was more like my sister than my parents’ daughter.

“It still bothers me that she’s a baby,” Sean continued. “But it is not her fault. If anything, she is worse off that she has such old – and devious —assholes for parents and brother. So once I started to not obsess over ‘Jesus, what a baby to have as a sis,’ I realized I didn’t mind spending time with her.”

Hemant’s eyes glittered. “Sean, Thank you. You just said exactly everything I have been meaning to tell you but couldn’t articulate.”

“I know you like taking Sam out,” said Sean. “And she loooves hanging out with you. She thinks you’re the funniest guy in the world, though I don’t know why.” Sean grinned.

“Just don’t tell Neelam when you leave home that you are coming over to take Sam out.”

Hemant’s face scrunched up, and his mouth opened wider. “I don’t like lying. And for what?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Hemant.”  Sean watched Hemant shake his head. “Listen. Lying is useful. And, don’t think it is easy. It is a lot harder than blurting out the truth.”  

Hemant's lifeless eyes drifted to the parking lot.

“Women are like that,” said Sean. “You don’t tell them what they don’t want to hear.”

Hemant asked for the check and paid it.

Sean got up on his feet. Hemant followed, and they began walking toward the car.

In the car, as he waited for Hemant to put on his seatbelt, Sean said, “Life sucks, doesn’t it?” before easing his way out of the parking lot. “I thought you and Neelam were perfect for each other.”

Hemant stared ahead through the windshield. “That’s another of our problems. Everybody assumes that,” he said.

The next morning, getting out of bed, Sean looked through his bedroom window. He saw Hemant squatting in his backyard and fiddling with his lawn mower before sitting down on the grass next to the equipment and staring into the distant sky. Hemant’s face looked gaunt and exhausted.

Sean remembered Hemant saying, “Of course,” when he asked Hemant if Neelam had stopped seeing Zafar, and yet… Sean had seen Zafar and Neelam together in the Barnes and Noble bookshop in the nearby mall two weekends back. He had gone there to pick up a New York Times bestseller on Marketing that his corporation had recommended. It was that time of the day when Hemant would be at the racquet club for his regular dose of Squash. He had watched Zafar’s hand resting on Neelam’s belly, and he had winced.

Looking at Hemant staring into the distant sky, Sean wondered what was going through his friend’s mind. Was he wondering how he could vanish into thin air? Sean put his hands to his face and pressed them hard as if that would make him erase the picture in front of his eyes. He could visualize Hemant morphing into his dad twenty years from now. A man lost and broken, inside and out, his shoulders drooping, hanging onto nothing…

“Fuck,” said Sean stomping his foot on the floor.

“Sean, can I come in?” Sam’s voice sounded from outside his door.

“Of course, Sam.” Sean spun around, excited for Sam’s company to distract him.

Kripa Nidhi, born and raised in India, has made Houston, TX, his home for the past 20+ years. When not writing, he works as an engineer. His short stories have been published in a couple of online magazines.