The Woman and the Lake

Her name, she knows, is Jane. She knows it like she knows the basket will be there every morning, floating outside her door, the waves gently lapping against it. She knows that inside the basket will be a meal, still warm. She likes it best when it is a loaf of fresh bread, warm from the oven, with a golden pat of butter at its side. There will always be a ream of coarse paper, its leaves roughly cut, and pen and ink when she needs them.

The Vending Machine, Part 3

"You know," Emma said, "if you'd just stop fixating on what happened, you'd get over it."

"Easier said than done," said James. "You weren't the one who embarrassed himself in a roomful of the best and brightest." He closed his eyes with a grimace.

"The Bollocks Club?" asked Emma, with a wicked grin on her face.

"Billocks --!"

"Bollocks! Best and brightest, hah! Funny old men, doddering about a room jabbering about sasquatchiae and bigfeet --"

"Bigfoots, technically --"

"Oh, you know what I mean. Anyway, there isn't any evidence these creatures exist --"

"Cryptids, accurately, and there's plenty! Video evidence, pictures, sound recordings, not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of sightings and encounters."

Emma paused in her step. "Have you?" she asked.

The Vending Machine, Part 2

“So you don’t know what happened to her?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t.”

“You were the last person seen with her.”

“Yes. No, I — I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“What? I mean –“

“Let’s go over the facts again. You, a Mr. Dennis, were seen with the missing woman heading into Kinley trail. An hour later, you walked out, alone.” I spread my hands. “There are two exits. None of the other joggers saw anyone on their way in or out. We’ve sent search parties into the woods and combed every half-inch of it. No one.”

I shrugged. “You called us. You can’t get your story straight. There was a, a what, a light? And then she was, what was it, taken? Into the sky? Babbling nonsense.”

“Look, I don’t know what I saw, okay? I was just there and then –“

“People don’t just disappear! Tell me what you did with her.”

He grimaced.

“I didn’t do anything with her. We were just talking!”

“Talking about what?”

“Her stupid obsession with god! She’s so sure there’s someone out there watching over us, and I was telling her, you know, that’s it’s a whole bunch of crap.”

“We have witnesses who say you were shouting at her.”

He avoided my gaze, drawing a deep breath. “I may have lost my temper. Just a little. But she’s been doing this for ages! Ever since she found that stupid cult –“

“Glenmarie Church of Christ?”

“Yes.” He muttered something under his breath.

“So I told her to come with me up the trail so we could talk it out. Just for a last time, you know? Then if she couldn’t listen to reason,” he spat, “I’d just get out of her loony life.”

“Did you strike her?”

“No.”

I waited. His knuckles were bruised, but clenched white.

“No! I didn’t! I would never hit Les.”

I sighed. “Look, just tell me what you did with her body, cut that crap about aliens out, and maybe we can get your sentence reduced –“

“I didn’t kill her,” he snarled.

“Then tell me the truth! Where did she go and what did you do with her?”

His face broke, and then softly, he began to speak. If he was going to confess, it would be now. I could feel it.

“We were halfway up the trail, at the clearing. And she, she was just going on and on — how happy she was and safe and secure she felt. Trusting in an invisible space cow.” He laughed to himself. “She asked me to come with her to that place, just one Sunday. One Sunday and maybe I could understand her better. I told her no. No way. Not touching that with a twenty foot pole. And if she wanted to throw away her logic and reasoning for god, if she wanted to throw away me –“

“I was so angry at her,” he said. “I yelled. I said some things I shouldn’t have maybe said, but she wouldn’t fight back. She just stood there and took it and smiled at me. I never knew a smile could cut so bad. And she said, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, you know? If god wanted us to be together, he would change my heart like he’d changed hers. You could hear the reverence in her voice when she said God. Like a capital G, o, d. She said she hoped I’d be happy. She was sad that I’d chosen this, that she loved me, but she loved God more, and she couldn’t be with someone who didn’t love God too.”

He cradled his head in his hands. “So I punched the drinks machine. Twice. Told her if she loved god so much she should go be with him right now.”

“There was this huge rushing wind. Blew leaves and dust in my eyes. Knocked me down. I looked up at her, and she was surrounded in light. Bathing in it. Ethereal. She touched me on the shoulder,” he indicated the place, “and she looked at me. I said her name, but I couldn’t hear myself. There was only this noise, this, this, deep vibration like a thousand plucked strings. She turned. Looked up into the light and smiled, that fucking smile.”

“Then she was gone,” he said. “And me alone, with the whisper of her leaving.”

“You’re telling the truth.” I asked. It was a statement.

“Yes.”

“What did she say, at the end?”

“She said,” his voice heavy, “‘See you soon.'”

Waiting

There is a road. The road travels up a hill. Upon the hill stands a house, and in the house is a woman. The woman is searching for something. Her eyes scan the windows. She stands and peers into the distance, trying to make out shapes in shimmering mirages and gusting sand. Her back is straight, and her shoulders firm, but the clothes she wears are fixed with dust, and her eyes are weary. The light beats down on her neck, but she is used to its weight.

The sky is green.

There is a faint odour of ash in the air, of fire and brimstone, and once living things left too long in the sun.

The woman paces along wooden corridors bleached white and cracking. Walls flake paint. Flutes of light descend from a hundred holes in the ceiling. This is the only shelter the woman has found in a long time. She doesn’t know how long she has been waiting. Long enough for the water to run out, long enough that the cool puddles she found under what shade was left have dried up and left the ground parched and wanting.

She is unsure if the aching she feels all around her is the ground or her body.

Once the woman was not alone. Once there was a spring that dipped down into a valley flooded with sound and living things. She remembered. The cool spray of water vapour in the air. Spreading branches and gentle light. The heated touch of fingers entwined, the beating of another heart.

And then the earth heaved to and fro, and the sky tore and crumpled, and emerald and jade bled into the blue.

And then for a long while there was a great rushing of humanity into the wilderness, an onrushing tide of panic that swept them up and carried their beating hearts far away. Fires burned starkly against olive evenings, until they could not be renewed. So the woman took the hand she held and led them onto the road.

The road is old, and well travelled. There are others like them, journeying along under a viridian sky. This way, they tell her. Follow the road. Whispers of their destination, of high walls and twisting towers, cobblestone floors ‘neath graceful arches. Fountains, water flowing in cascades and sheets. She is amazed. She has forgotten what it is like to dip a hand into a rushing stream and draw a fluid arc in the air.

She smells only ash, only fire and brimstone.

As time passes, so do friendly conversations and strange fires. Their best company is themselves, anyway.

There is a new odour in the air, greasy and rotten. She is reminded suddenly of a swollen tomato bursting in blackish ooze.

One night she clings tightly to her companion. To let go would be to leave the only thing she knows behind. She feels like she has lost herself, that the fibres of her being are unravelling under a sky transformed. Her mind rattles with the anxiety of the unknown. She holds on, eyes opened long after the other slips into sleep, mouthing words into the air.

The Vending Machine

It was a painfully hot Saturday afternoon when Alan happened upon the vending machine. It was painfully hot because Alan was outside, in the sun, instead of somewhere cool and dark with an icy glass of soda. Alan wished he had a soda. Even one of those sickly sweet store brands would do. The real question, Alan said to himself, is why he was here.

As far back as the history of man extends, great thinkers have wrestled and argued with this problem. To Alan, these great thinkers were a bunch of mouldy potatoes. ‘Utterly useless,’ as his girlfriend would say. ‘Complete bollocks,’ she would continue. ‘Look at you, sitting there with your greasy fingers and fat bottom, looking at me all quizzical like. I don’t even know why I bother coming over when you’re just going to –’

The answer, of course, was that Alan was here because Melanie had put him out here.

Melanie was a woman of significant needs. Mostly, she needed Alan. She needed Alan to shape up, of course. What kind of girl had a slightly rotund boyfriend anyway? All the best looking girls had a boy with chiselled features and slabs of muscle. It’s true – she’d read it in Best Girls Weekly. ‘Alan,’ she would sigh, looking at him despondently, ‘don’t you think you ought to be like one of this lot?’ And then she would gesture vaguely at one of those male models one sees on the telly with an overdeveloped chest.

Alan would remark about someone compensating for something somewhere and then as Melanie glared at him, he would retreat meekly. At times, Melanie would cry. In the first stage, she would be a hiccupy sort of weeper, where words would get trapped in her throat. ‘Don’t you love me?’ she would stammer, ‘Don’t you care –‘

Then the second stage would set upon her suddenly, and she would dissolve into a puddle of tears and tissue paper and incoherent rages and refuse to be comforted. Alan’s bedroom would be her refuge. Alan, bewildered, would attempt to communicate. Of course he loved her. Of course he cared. He would say these things to her prostrate body, swaddled in the sheets, and she would roll around in response, her golden hair vibrating gently in time to her sobbing.

When Alan leaves, the door will inevitably be left open so that the sounds of her distress reach him.

The third stage: Alan, having dozed off on the lumpy couch, would awaken to faint noises. Melanie: a majestic yet slightly wet queen swamped in bedding and pillows, her neck held in a regal pose, would announce that she was sorry. She would be sorry for putting Alan through her moods, that she knew life was hard enough as it was, that if he could only do this one thing, this one simple thing for her, she would be eternally content, she would be ecstatic, and she knew that Alan could do it, because she loved Alan and knew Alan loved her, and wasn’t love the greatest power in the world? And her mam had always said that love could move mountains, and this were just a little molehill weren’t it?

Alan would apologize and she would swoop down like a graceful elephant and smother him with kisses and she would go into his kitchen and make pancakes for them to eat.

And then, as the aroma of maple syrup begins to curl in the air, she would announce that Alan needed to go out and get some exercise. ‘I don’t know,’ she would say, ‘just run around or something. Whatever you boys do.’

So after an hour of running up and down on a painfully hot Saturday afternoon, Alan happened upon the vending machine. His heart contracted with a sudden pang of joy, and he paused to wipe the sweat off his brow.

WISHES GRANTED, it said. DESTINIES FULFILLED!

Alan frowned. This was a non-standard vending machine in a non-standard vending machine location. It was at the side of the bloody forest trail. How did it get here, anyway? It wasn’t here… last week? Alan shrugged and prodded it with his index finger. The vending machine’s plastics had weathered in the sun, and its dramatic lettering had faded somewhat, but the colours and stars painted on it would have looked at home in a circus.

Alan put fifty cents in the slot, anyway. A can of soda rolled out, wispy vapours swirling around it. Icy cold. Perfect.

For a blissful moment, everything was right in the world.

Thomas looks for something to eat

“There’s nothing to eat,” Thomas said, looking at half a roasted chicken sitting atop a bed of greens. “Nothing at all.” He closed the fridge door and lay on the floor. He looked at the ceiling. It was painted an awful beige, and it was peeling. Some of the patches made an unhappy face. He sighed and opened the fridge again. A low hum emanated from beneath the shelves. They were laden with, in addition to the chicken, a bowl of tuna fish mixed with not enough mayonnaise, a plate of fried rice that had been sitting in there for way too long and what was she thinking in keeping that half rotted thing it even had mould growing on it and – oh. It was that expensive blue cheese she was always mooning on about. Thomas made a face and moved on. Orange juice, almost expired orange juice, an opened can of Coke that he sniffed at and –

There were those sausages, he thought hopefully. They were pretty good the last time he’d eaten them. He opened a drawer. The package of sausages was empty. Somewhere deep inside Thomas’ soul, a darkness emerged, filled with a bewildered hurt against the world. The fridge beeped at him, and in its electronic monotone he heard no comfort. Thomas closed the door.

The universe was trying to tell him something. That was it. There couldn't be another reason why he would be tormented this way.

“Haven’t I been good?” he asked the toaster. “Haven’t I been –“

His voice caught in his throat, and there was a burning in his chest.

“Jesus wept,” he said, in a small voice.

He sniffled.

And then, almost in slow motion, the box of cornflakes fell to the floor, its contents spilling out into the air, falling in graceful arcs, shattering into fractal pieces on the marbled floor –

Thomas blinked. The box of cornflakes was still on the shelf, its colourful box proclaiming now with marshmallow bits in gold and green, its box standing firmly on the shelf, a rock upon which the hopes and dreams of every cell in his body stood. It was beautiful. Thomas reached out, his fingers trembling ever so slightly, his gaze affixed. And when he finally touched the flimsy cardboard there was a palpable warmth to the box, and a heady intoxication that overwhelmed his senses. A low thrum filled his ears like a thousand saxophones behind a soundproof Plexiglas and the colours – why, the colours vibrated in his very soul.

“This is sacred ground,” he murmured, caressing its fine print, his index finger obscuring total fat, cholesterol and sodium. “Sacred.”

He lifted the box gently, careful of its weight. Every moment was drawn out in time, a lifetime compressed into each second and then expanding to the aeons. Mountains bloomed from the rock and the heavens threw them down from lofty heights, rivers formed and swept the earth to oceans wide and blue – a winged being, raising a spear at a huge sauropod, muscles tensing, roaring as the spear found its mark. In each beat of 

Thomas’ heart he felt the heat death of the universe draw nearer and nearer, a million voices crying out and suddenly silenced –

Thomas closed his eyes. “Jesus wept,” he said, reverentially. There was a sparkle of knowing in his eyes. He pulled open a drawer and retrieved his favourite bowl. He moved gracefully, reaching over for a spoon, the fridge door pulled open with just enough strength to grab a bottle of milk. He rapped the bottle of milk with the spoon and listened to its hum reverberate, marvelling at the sound.

He opened the cereal box and began to pour, a gentle susurration in his ears as the cornflakes rustled, calling out his name. Calling out his name! This was divine providence. Surely, surely there was a God. Thomas had no doubts now, no niggling questions in the back of his head, no unanswered problems to wrestle with.

This was the land of milk and honey flavoured cornflakes, and Thomas feasted.

Thomas gorged.

Thomas ate with a ferocity almost animalistic, desire coursing through his veins. Tasting, tasting infinite sweetness, flavours sliding over his tongue. His spoon, dipping, diving, driving against the bottom of the bowl, and as he swallowed the last moist crumb, Thomas shuddered in violent pleasure.

And when he had placed the box of cornflakes back on the shelf, and washed and cleaned the mystical implements of spoon and bowl, Thomas felt a strange loss. The vibrant hues had retreated to their wan pastels, and time had returned to its steady tick-tocking. Yet there was a part of him irreversibly connected to that moment now, a part of him that had experienced apotheosis and had then been cast down. Thomas wiped the table clear mechanically, his hand rubbing in circles, wondering if everything in his life had culminated to a point now five minutes in the past.

“Is that all there is?” he asked. Would there be a division in the line of his life, a mark that indicated the measure before cornflakes and after? A steady rise to the peak, and sharp decline to follow? Thomas’ stomach gurgled. He looked down at it.

“No, no, no, no,” he said. The bottle of milk. It was next to the – where was it? There! Thomas grabbed at it. It slipped out of his hand and he caught it at the tips of his fingers. “No, no, no, no,” he said, looking at the label. We are reminded, briefly, of Newton’s third law, which states, and let us read it out together, ‘For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.’

Of Thomas and his flight to the porcelain throne, we shall speak no more.

Instead, let us be encouraged by the simple fact that for all the men and women that have been born, each one has a story to tell of a devastating number two. This one is Thomas’.

Fin

One fish said to the other

in uniformed rows of two
went the school to the zoo
with knowledge deficient
plus a teacher most patient
for in murky waters deep and dark
hid information, ready to spark
tender minds with wicks alight
eager eyes, shining so bright
an eerie glint in his eye
the educator began to cry

"here the primates of past
ogled and goggled aghast
mighty tiger, flighty mouse
scrunchy rabbits, ruffled grouse
had men some contemplation
noticed, they would have, indications
of rising waters and falling skies
humanity said: "what's for dinner, pie?"
content with their lives contemptible
they refused to be compatible
with mother nature's sobs and pleas
saying blithely: "there is only we"
the seas rose and mountains tumbled
and homo sapiens yelled and grumbled
"we don't deserve this," they said
as their bill, in full, was paid
follow the signs down the road
covered in mud, speckled with mould
this way to their demise
(not like it was a surprise)
see the graveyards of civilizations
now silent through purification"

exeunt teacher fish, stage left
enter tuna school, bereft
"my brains are bulging," said one
"quite frankly, I'm overcome"
they floated past ruined crowns
magnificent structures now come down
they paused before boneyards wide
stared at monuments once deified
and together agreed without fail
humanity was a cautionary tale