To that I say, Roberta had it coming.
I am the second Mrs. Roberts. The first Mrs. R. is my sister who should have known it would never last. How could anyone go through life as Roberta Roberts? Her marriage was doomed long before I got involved. To his credit, Mr. Roberts did try to discourage a romance, but I was relentless. What about Roberta? We were a perfect pair, best friends, and best sisters. How lucky you are everyone said, and I felt it. So lucky. Until we were a cliché. Scorned women.
To that I say, Roberta had it coming. In an old abandoned mansion, the ghost of a young woman roamed the halls, her eerie sobbing voice echoing through the empty rooms. Locals, hunched over mugs of ale, whispered that she had died tragically, seeking revenge on those who had wronged her. One night, a group of daring teenagers snuck into the mansion, hoping to glimpse the ghost. As they crept through the dark corridors, they heard a blood-curdling scream and felt icy fingers on their necks. They ran for their lives, never daring to return, but some say they still hear the girl's haunting laughter in their dreams.
The firing stopped. The smoke slowly dissipated. The warehouse was riddled with bullet holes, its windows blown out. The Chief had his bullhorn.
"OKAY, ROCCO, IT'S YOUR LAST CHANCE. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP." "I'm not coming out," said Rocco. "I CAN'T HEAR A THING YOU SAID." What was the chance of Rocco having a bullhorn? He put down one of his guns. "I'M NOT COMING OUT." "WHAT? YOU HAVE A BULLHORN?" "YOU COPS WILL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE," blared Rocco. It was what the Chief had hoped for. He hated Rocco and the thought of taking him alive. Hank was a big jackrabbit with a thin skin and didn’t like jokes about his size.
Willy advised. “You’re overly sensitive. So what if people ask if you’re a jackalope – if that’s your picture on the postcard. No harm in that, right?” Hank wrinkled his nose, stepping right up to Willy’s face. “Jackalope?” Willy pushed back, bumping his friend’s hip. “Jackalope!” Hank hopped back, and Willy again caught him in the hip – yelling and pushing. The rabbit warren was joined by the neighboring prairie dogs, shouting encouragement. And thusly was hip hop born on the prairie. I look up from my nectar gathering to see one of those monsters the humans fly in above me.
I don’t know what it eats but what emerges from its tail looks hot and painful to me. There are so many of these things now. It’s a pity there is fewer of my kind though. My hive used to have more bees. We all got on too. We just do. Could show the humans a thing or two here. Tragic, really. Our losses are not all down to the wasps, I know that. Could there be a link? I open the door. All I can see of my car is its roof. I fling myself on white, landing atop a thickness of snow our region hasn’t seen for sixty-seven years. Five feet deep the news says.
My mittened hands pull. My boots push. I’m like a fish swimming against the tide. “What are you doing?” my husband cries from the porch. I turn my head, wave him off, and continue my struggle. Exhausted, I reach the roof and lie supine on its shiny smoothness. Snowflakes caress my face like cold cotton. It’s a day to imagine. I sat alone in the bleachers, watching a space agency crew deploy tracking equipment on my high school’s football field. They expected some debris to fall near us.
Down there, I had run some memorable plays. One night last summer, I drank Southern Comfort on that field and in the dark sky, I spotted the space station, a bright speck running across a sea of stars. The next day, trouble began. Now, as the space station’s crew surrendered to one critical malfunction after another, they broadcast a final message. “Our mere mission may end, but your grand voyage goes on.” When our neighbour raised a cardboard kingdom in her hallway, we weren’t concerned. Maybe the boxes made her feel safe? Anyway, our children loved this new wonderland.
We stopped visiting when the turrets began to teeter like stoned funambulists. Who plonks outdated almanacs on top of empty boxes? Then, she started posting jaundiced newspaper clippings through our door with notes attached. 'Thought this might interest you?' Eventually, we had to push our way in. ‘Please stop this. You sent fifteen notes yesterday!’ ‘But it got you here,’ she said, and strutted to the kitchen to make tea. She hugged the platform column as tightly as a life preserver, trying to remember how many subways had come and gone. A blur. Still, this time would be different, she promised herself. This time she would go into the car.
The subway rattled its way past her followed by a screech followed by the mechanical thunk of sliding doors. Riders swarmed around her. Her breath came short. She longed to move but they were everywhere! Another subway come and gone. But a body blocked the door. “They scare me, too.” A fellow traveler? Emboldened by his understanding, she stepped inside. Spring’s finally here.
Thrown out on the street after all these years of hobnobbing together. In the stripy wear at that, so out of fashion. It starts raining, tiny drips at first. “He could have waited at least until Saturday.” Forecast shows no showers and a temperature rise. “Oh well, good riddance. At least I am in the fresh air now.” Massive clouds promise inexorable havoc. No grace period. Only self-sustaining laments over the past. Carrying a crimson rose, black suit smirks at the sight: “He has finally gotten rid of that awful couch! A dreadful pattern.” Next stop: Wastelands. The refurbished ’62 Plymouth Fury pulled into the diner’s parking lot just before closing time. He sat proudly outside, his daughter’s first shift ending shortly. The sign blinked off; the doors were locked; and the lights inside dimmed.
The flash from inside reflected off the freshly waxed coat of orange on his hood in perfect unison with the revolver’s echoing report. The “beige or silver late model Buick LeSabre,” as it was described later on the news, sped from behind the building and “south on Murdock Street.” Inside, her buzzing phone lay unanswered on the floor next to her. The last fig of the season is alive with wasps. Clinging by a stem to a silt vine, it’s ready to be twisted off. But the fig with its wasps must ride the bough all the way down to the give in the ground, to bury the old with the new. If it’s too soon for so deep a dark ─ wasps still laying eggs in the flowers within, not ready, not ready at all─ shouldn’t the branch resist flinging the fig onto the dirt full of the ends of other lives? At least, not with the wasps still inside.
When the cleaner got the call to attend Acacia Ward she saw an old woman in bed, close to death. As she watched, the breathing stopped.
The old woman found herself standing next to the cleaner and staring down at her own body. ‘Am I..?’ ‘Yes, you have died, Norma,’ said the cleaner. ‘My name is Maria. Hold my hand and I’ll help you towards the light.’ She hadn’t spoken aloud. ‘Don’t just stand there staring into space — this floor needs cleaning,’ said the nurse. Maria blinked, nodded and began mopping, awaiting her next call. After her grandfather died, she was left with boxes of his keepsakes. Old photos and trinkets from his youth. A lifetime of memories. And while the first few were filled with fun treasures, it was the final that brought tears to her eyes.
The box was a collection of photos of her grandmother. Love letters and postcards splayed in between. Empty tubes of lipstick. Bottles of perfume. There were dried flowers, too. Daisies and roses. Ticket stubs to cheap movies and negatives of film. An antique romance. Dedicated to the love of his life, with whom he was now reunited. One hour. With a timer. Nearly every day.
For five years no afterschool activities. Just piano practice. Only mother, showing little interest, attended my recitals. I grew to loathe classical music. Finally, after literally begging, I was set free. Father began happily joining me at the piano with his guitar: Jazz, blues, rock and folk. He started drinking less. But mother grew sullen. “You’re not playing how they were written.” One day I came home to find the piano gone. “Well, since you’re obviously not going to become a classical pianist, I decided to sell it.” I swear she smirked. “You should be the UK’s Entrepreneur of the Year,” Milif jokes.
“How’s that?” “Our lifejackets,” my Albanian foreman continues. “They give our customers confidence to attempt the Channel crossing. It’s lucrative genius.” We continue inspecting my warehouse-stroke-sweatshop. Foam cut to size, stitched inside orange polyester, smuggled across to Calais. Simple. “Do you reckon our lifejackets actually work?” Milif asks. In answer, a text arrives from my lorry driver in France. A boatload of migrants has gone down wearing our lifejackets. No survivors. “Maybe we should relocate to Turkey to take advantage of migrant traffic headed for Italy,” I tell Milif. The woman was distraught. “I’ve lost my little girl. Put out a call, please.”
She handed me a crumpled black and white photograph. “She only looks about five,” I said “No, she’s nearly six now.” Automatically, I glanced down the aisles for the child. My supervisor smiled. “She just let go of my hand,” she whimpered, urging me to the microphone. “Don’t distress yourself,” I said. “Would Colleen Barton come to Customer Service.” “We couldn’t wait to see how old you were Mrs. Barton.” I said to the elderly lady. ‘Mum does get quite confused. After all, she is ninety-two.” She wiggled her toes in soft white sand, admiring the sun-kissed tide advancing ashore. Its hypnotic motion induced sleep.
Strangers advanced, circling in a frantic search, awakening her to the sound of their heightened conversation. “What’s wrong?” she grumbled. “Lost her ring,” the man announced. “Tucked it inside a towel before swimming,” his partner insisted. Upon receiving no favourable news, they sped along the shoreline. As waves recoiled into the sea, the sunbather rose to leave. A shiny object caught her attention. Grasping, holding it, she dashed. Then, stopped to look down. The ring was no longer in her hand. Rachel clicked open her email and groaned, “Grrr! Another rejection.” All she was getting these days were rejections and her confidence was eroding like the Florida shoreline.
With tears stinging her eyes, Rachel plucked her book of inspirational quotes off the shelf. Though she had seen them all before, she hoped to find one that would hit the spot. Then she saw it, a quote by Truman Capote that read, “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” Rachel rolled it over in her mind a dozen times, and the next time she received a rejection she shouted, “Yummy.” Boss lawyer Bigg gave young Ray the file: “Mona More’s mom plowed into another mailbox. She shouldn’t drive. Plead her out, pull her license.”
Ray phoned the judge, 'Sentencing Sam': “Mona’s mom has done it again. Can you revoke her license?” “Nope. But watch me. See you in court.” Ray offered no defense. Sam sentenced: “Reckless driving. Guilty. $1000 fine. Madam, if I see you driving again, you’re going away a long, long time.” Ray: “Happy boss?” Mr. Bigg: “Yep. So scared she wet her pants.” Ray felt great. Until he remembered the elderly lady was his client, not Mona. John is an Aquarian. Ever since that wonderful day in 1940 when he burst onto the world, cold and miserable February has always been a special month in his life.
In 1990 his wife bought him a helicopter ride over Robin Hood’s fair city as a special treat but it was delayed as weather conditions and family arrangements prevented the flight from taking place until 24th July. When the big day arrived he was joined by family members, birthday cake and wine and sunshine. He was so overjoyed with the sparkling celebration he thought he should be a sunny Leonian. “Digby Dimblecheeks reporting from the River Dan where I’m standing with Juniper Whistie, daughter of Britain’s Queen of Crime.”
“She just kept clacking away at the keys of that old typewriter. Clack. Clack. Mother loved words more than she ever loved me.” “But you must have been proud when her first novel became a best seller?” “No. She just began churning out more of the same.” Police sirens blare. Blue lights flash. Handcuffs restrain. The camera pans to a body floating face down, surrounded by lily-pads of manuscript pages. Dame Arathura Whistie will clack no more. “Digby Dimblecheeks signing off.” The road is long, silent, and dark. It’s seemingly deserted until I hear footsteps behind me. I turn but see no one.
When I stop, so does the person behind me. When I run, he runs. I turn the corner on another street. The footsteps follow. The darkness seems to envelop everything. A cold wind blows, and I hunker into my heavy coat. The footsteps continue behind me, but no one is there. I turn another corner. A man walks ahead of me. He looks behind him at the sound of my footsteps but sees no one. Bill loved to dance at village socials but could barely perform the simplest steps, his lack of co-ordination making him a liability on the dance floor. Everyone knew, and gave him plenty of room.
Over forty years of marriage, Betty had tried many times to teach him, without success. The last straw was when Bill broke Betty’s toe during a waltz. She screamed, thrust him away and he fell, breaking his wrist and tripping two other dancers, one losing two teeth while the other suffered concussion. They never danced again. The YouTube clip had gone viral, and they were famous. There was beauty in the stillness of February. In the gray skies and gentle snowfall. The lake was still frozen over—not yet cracked nor splintered by the spring sun. And though cold and bitter as it was, the light began to return. Days longer and nights shorter. Bringing a slow warmth back to the earth.
But still, March loomed in the distance. And while beautiful with the spurts of green, the snows remained heavy. Perhaps, more than the rest of winter. Yet, the heavier the snow, the more beautiful and calming the spring. Waiting so closely on the horizon. |
"Classic"
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