Middle-aged Man, Made of Meat

Pino rose reluctantly from dreams of magic. His joints seemed to creak, and he remembered the amazing year in which he was born, fresh, a wooden puppet. His joints rattled then, instead of aching.

What if he'd never changed? Would he still feel ancient on this morning? Wood can last an amazingly long time, but it's not eternal. What if a finger had broken off, and been replaced by unenchanted wood? Would it feel like him? Would it be him, if he was replaced entirely, piece by piece? Tantalizing, to think of living forever, a mended, patched life, replacing himself piece by piece, not knowing if he was still the same individual.

About like now, he reflected. Darn near the same. He chuckled at this, took up his axe, and whistled as he went outside to work.

 

originally a tweet

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WARD OF THE WINGS - the untold story

The climax of the Warner Brothers version of "Lord of the Rings." Frodo is played by a wabbit:

[Frodo sidesteps the last Orc and dashes to the top of a vertiginous peak off of some 50's classical album.]

Sauwon: Oh no! Oh no! I didn't KILL THE HOBBIT!
Frodo: Aha! Aha! He didn't kill the hobbit!
And now I'm at the top
And now it will be gone--
On second thought, I'll wait
And try the darn thing on.

[Just then, the miserable little black duck runs in]

Gollum: No! You can't have it! It's ours! It's ours! [Grabs the ring; teeters on the edge. Frodo offers a hand, but he slaps it away, sending himself plunging.] OH NO YOU DON'T! HAHAHAHA! [He hits the lava.] We win! We're rich! We're powerful! We're a happy miser! [Lava closes over him.] Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday to us...

Sam: Well, he's g-g-g-... he's g-g-g-... that's all, folks!
Frodo: Actually, Sam, we have to trek our way back home for another 45 minutes.
Merry: Thufferin' Thnaketh!
Frodo: Well, whaddaya expect from a trilogy? An ending?

.

 

originally written around 2004 for rec.arts.sf.fandom
"Bill Lava" joke regretfully removed April 6, 2025

 

The Powder from Hell (short fiction)

The bus rolls down I-80, and for the third time on this trip, I unfold some letters. The first two times, I was sharing a seat with cheerful busybodies from whom I instinctively shielded the letters. Third time's the charm -- I not only have the seat to myself, I have at least half the bus to myself. I raise my eyes for a moment and check the scenery -- still endless fields of something green and leafy. I lower my eyes to the first letter.

"Dear Brother,

"I have arrived, safe and sound, in the hamlet of Arkville. I thought there were mountains in the West, but I am informed that those are much farther off, and that one does not begin to see them until one is almost in Colorado. The bus journey was long, past fields of corn and soybeans, truck farms and truck stops. We passed one where the water tower had been decorated to resemble an enormous coffee percolator! On the way, I practiced my shorthand skills by transcribing the contents of billboards that we passed. I am most anxious to do well in my first job, working for the Arkville Refreshment Corporation. It's such a big move, from home to here. If my classmates at the Springfield Secretarial Academy could only see me now!

"I was greeted at the bus stop in Grand Island by a tall, rawboned man in overalls who never wasted a word. Indeed, he didn't use a word if he could nod his head or otherwise gesture the answer. He put my bags into the back of his truck and drove me the rest of the way to the company gates and was gone before I could fish out a tip from my purse. He is paid by the bus company to convey people the last part of the way, when someone wants to come to Arkville.

"I am working for the Vice President of the company, a Mister Traum. I had to stifle a giggle at his appearance, for he looks so very much like the 'before' picture on an advertisement for some sort of sleeping aid. His skin is grey, and his eyes have bluish hollows beneath, and he seems to shuffle or shamble when he walks. His speech seems almost listless, and I have to prick up my ears to catch what he says sometimes. What is more surprising, the other people I have met here look much the same. It's as if they were members of the same family, though their last names are mostly different from one another's. Perhaps there's something in the water?

"Anyway, it's late, and I will start work in the morning. Wish me luck! And do write to me!!

"Your loving sister."

I suspect I am now going through the same scenery she described in the letter. In fact, a few minutes later, I would see the giant percolator. The first time I opened a soda on the bus, I wasn't sure if it was allowed, but now I know the driver doesn't care. I decant the cola I bought at the last bus depot and use it to help choke down some cheese peanut butter crackers while I read the second letter.

"...I would have sent the first letter sooner, but there are no mailboxes here for employees to use! I finally walked out to the road, looking for the company mailbox, and encountered the mail carrier, and he took it for me. Can you imagine not having a mailbox?

"The work is rather easy, so far. My boss, Mister Traum, speaks so slowly I don't even know that I need to use my shorthand. I'm impressed, though, with his plans for the company. They make some kind of sweet beverage here in the form of a powder that you mix with water. He is poised to go national with his brand, by forming a partnership with an existing company that makes an orange-flavored breakfast drink. He has contacts at the company that used to work at his own company. They've been planning it for years -- he's really a visionary!

"My only regret is that I can't stand the stuff myself! Isn't that awful? It's a sort of bluish-purplish powder that mixes with water. I thought the water here was bad enough, but just put some of that in it, and it's worse! The water is kind of hard and chemically, but with this in, it tastes downright metallic, like some flavor not of this earth. This is just between you and me and the gatepost, though. Don't want to lose my job..."

So far, the tone of the letters was light and cheerful. That changed with the third one.

"...I'm peeved with Mister Traum, who keeps trying to get me to drink the purple stuff. It's not official company policy, apparently -- at least, it's not in the employee manual they gave me! -- but everybody else swills the foul stuff like it was ginger ale. You can tell who drinks it, because they all look like Mister Traum. I thought maybe it was a family operation, but they're not related. I'm the only one here who doesn't talk... real... slow... and slur words and shuffle around. I hate to think that the drink is why they all act like that.

"But it's getting annoying. When I started, my apartment had working taps, and then they sent a plumber in who said the water wasn't good to drink. Do I need to tell you that he talked slowly and shambled when he walked? They cut off my water, and the only running water in the place is in the bathroom. I thought of drinking from the tub water, but the way the pipes look, I'd almost as soon drink out of the can, pardon my French. They put pitchers of water and the purple junk outside my door every day, and they are cutting down how much water they give me. I could scream.

"I'm off to find the mailman, I guess. He'll be by in about an hour, more or less, and it takes twenty minutes to walk out to the road. Tomorrow's supposed to be a big day. Company tour..."

The bus was stopping. My perusal of the letters was temporarily put aside while I got out at the gas station that shared some space with the bus line. Apparently, the buses only stopped there if they put a flag up, or if the bus had someone to drop off. I expected a lunch counter, but found only another vending machine and pop machine. While I waited for the farmer and his truck, I got some change and stocked up on more cracker snacks and sodas.

"...Get me out of here! I can't stand this any longer! They showed me where the powder comes from, and it's not something they make, it's something that comes from pits deep in the ground! It's horrible. We went down in a mine elevator. I can't tell you how far, but it felt like a mile. It stank down there. I hadn't realized the stuff had an odor, but now I can't get it out of my mind. It was hot, too, and of course, there was nothing to drink but the vile liquid itself. I took a sip, just a sip to keep my throat from constricting, and it was like I was intoxicated. I saw things moving in the tunnels, far away. I hoped it was a trick of the light, or maybe a hallucination from the foul draught. I begged them to take me back up. I don't remember the ride back to the surface.

"I woke up back in my room, and looked for the pitcher of water, and there was none. I shall lose my mind if I stay here much longer. Come and get me! I am afraid of this place and these people. Please, dear brother, you are my only hope!"

The truck arrived. I visited the restroom before we left, and took a long drink of water from the semi-clean sink. drinking out of my cupped hands. Reading her words had made me thirsty. I looked intently at the farmer who drove me from the station to a county road. He seemed normal. I asked him questions, and he answered them with an economy of verbiage that would have done Silent Cal Coolidge proud, but I learned that he goes back and forth to the company, conveying packages from the bus station and back, twice a week. I persuaded him, with the aid of a couple of large-denomination bills, to wait at the gate for an hour. He seemed unwilling at first to jeopardize his working relationship, but the promise of more money and my assurance that the company wouldn't mind overcame his reluctance. We turned off onto a dirt road, and I realized we were almost there.

The countryside wasn't what I was used to back East. Away from the irrigated fields, the land was dry, and flatter than Massachusetts. The vegetation was in clumps. I walked for several minutes down the gravel drive, finally reaching the strange, isolated complex of buildings that was the factory. Nobody was outside. I ended up going to the front door and trying the knob. It was locked. I rang the bell, and was greeted by a man who seemed to fit the description of Traum: grey skin, sunken eyes in dark circles. I introduced myself, and said I was looking for my sister. He turned, without a word, and started walking. I presumed I was supposed to follow, impatiently checking my watch. Would the farmer wait long enough? The man walked with devilish slowness. Down a hall, up a flight of stairs. I checked my watch again.

Finally, he took me down a corridor and stopped at a door. A tray stood on the floor, looking somewhat like a room service tray, with an empty pitcher on it. He knocked, and motioned for me to wait, and he slowly went back the way we had come. As I waited for the door to open, I mentally replayed the route we had taken. It was slightly circuitous, but I felt that I could retrace it if need be. There was a sound behind the door, and the knob turned. I found myself looking at my sister.

I smiled in recognition. "I'm here," I said. "Get your things together -- only as much as you can carry. We're leaving."

She looked up at me with sunken eyes, a flicker of regret on her greyish features. "I'm staying here," she said slowly. "This is my job. I'm sorry I brought you out here for nothing." She turned away and shuffled apathetically back into her room.

"But you wanted to leave! Come on, let's get out of here. I've only been here--" I looked at my watch. "--twenty minutes, and I'm anxious to go. Come back with me! I have your ticket."

She shambled over to the counter, where a glass of some bluish liquid stood. "I'm okay now. Everything is fine." Looking me in the eye, she took a long drink and put the glass down. I looked at my watch. If I hurried, I might make it back to where the farmer might be waiting in his truck. I strode out into the hall, my mind racing, and hastened back the way I'd come. I found the stairs I'd come up, and went back along the hallway I remembered. I came to a place I hadn't seen before, retraced my steps and found the hall branching off. I got to the front door of the building and stepped outside. The sky was starting to get a little darker. By my watch, I had ten minutes to travel a distance that had taken me twenty minutes before.

I walked, I ran. I lost my head and dashed as quickly as I could. When I got in sight of the gate in the barbed-wire fence that led to the dirt road, the truck wasn't there. The driver, the truck, my valise, even the sodas I had bought, all were gone.

The cold came quickly as it got dark. My coat was in the truck. I finally went back to the apartment, where I was admitted without comment. I now sit uneasily on a wooden chair, looking at the pitcher on the counter. Behind me is a woman who is no longer my sister, and all around me is a company bent on bringing to the world an unspeakable substance that will, I am convinced, be the downfall of us all. It will be two days before the farmer returns for his regular business here. My head swims with the enormity of it. I'm worn out from my exertions. There is nothing to drink here, nothing save for the ubiquitous, vile bluish-purplish liquid, and -- Lord help me! -- I THIRST!

.

Mission: Improbable [content warning: sex, violence, bad puns]

(Opening music plays: Theme to "Peabody's Improbable History")

Peabody: Hello, everyone. Peabody here, and this is my boy, Sherman.

Sherman: What are we going to do today, Mr. Peabody?

P: Today, Sherman, we are going back to the Whitechapel district of London, in the year 1888, to pay a call upon that notorious cut-up, Jack the Ripper.

S: I'll set the WABAC machine!

[Business with WABAC]

P: And here we are. And there, unless I'm very much mistaken--which I never am--the gentleman with the high neckline and narrow lapels is Mr. Ripper himself.

(Jack is the typical upper-class English twit we've seen in other Jay Ward cartoons, vaguely reminiscent of young David Niven.)

S: Gosh, Mr. Peabody! He's just standing there! He's not ripping anybody!

P: Give him time, Sherman, give him time. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

(they wait)

P: That's enough time, Sherman. Let's go give history a helping hand, shall we?

S: Let's shall!

P: We can work on your English later.

S: What are you going to do, Mr. Peabody?

P: As history suggests, Jack was a misogynist with a maniacal hatred of women of the street. Therefore, we shall introduce him to such a woman and let nature take its awful course.

(A strumpet shows up, and Peabody instructs her.)

P: Here, madame, is a pretty penny for you, if you will go up to that gentleman and whisper filthy nothings in his ear.

Strumpet: Coo lumme, pet!

(She walks up to to him and whispers in his ear. Disappointingly, his reaction consists of manifesting a bunch of hearts and blushing slightly, then following her offstage.)

P: Alas, Sherman, our first gambit has failed.

S: What'll we do now, Mr. Peabody?

P: We wait, Sherman.

(Five minutes later, the twit returns from his assignation and stands on the corner again.)

P: And now, let's see if we can poison his mind against that lady of the evening. Oh, sir!

J: Oh, I say, what, wot?

P: Are you aware that the young woman you were dallying with just now is a harlot?

J: I beg your pardon?

P: A harlot. A naughty lady. A tuppence tart.

J: Oh, I say! I gave her thruppence! (goofy smile) But it was worth fuppence and a ha'penny! (more hearts emit)

P: Ah, but she doesn't care with whom she cohabits, and is even now sharing her possibly diseased charms with other gents.

J: Oh, well, jolly old fortunes of war, wot? Share the wealth, wot?

P: But aren't you just a bit irate, or murderously jealous?

J: I should say not! Easy come, easy go!
(He resumes standing aimlessly and Peabody returns to Sherman.)

S: What now, Mr. Peabody?

P: What indeed, Sherman! This is a poser. If Jack the Ripper fails to rip, history itself will be the poorer for it!

S: Gosh!

P: Gosh, indeed. Indeed, gosh! Let me think.

(Sherman assumes a posture of silent, alert readiness, as befits a well-trained boy.)

P: Sherman, I have it!

S: The plague?

P: No, an idea. According to the best historians--I include myself among their number--Jack the Ripper, in addition to his day job of ripping, was also a frustrated surgeon.

S: He was?

P: He positively was. And therefore, I shall appeal to his medical nature. (to Jack) Oh, sir!

J: You rang?

P: Are you aware that the saucy bit of crumpet with whom you have been cavorting is in urgent need of medical attention?

J: Good heavens!

P: And if you don't operate at once, her appendix and spleen may both burst forthwith?

J: I? Operate? But, my dear sir, I have no idea what to do!

P: Just follow my instructions, and all will be copacetic. Come along, there's no time to lose!

(They dash around the corner to where the Strumpet is back to soliciting.)

P: There she is. Quickly, hold this ether-soaked cotton in front of her nose for five seconds!

J: It smells fascinating. What a bouquet! (starts to sniff at it)

P: Stop! Do as I say, or I'll summon a bobby!

J: Oh, very well. (He knocks out the Strumpet.)

P: Now, gather her up, and follow me into this secluded alley. You will follow my directions to the letter!

J: Oh, quite. Pip pip.

P: (voice over) For the next thirty minutes, I directed that hapless drone in a series of the most horrific indignities a human being has ever perpetrated on another. At the end of the time, the hapless fille de joie was a lifeless, bloody husk, and Jack the Ripper was born!

J: Say, that was ripping fun! I think I'll do it again! And again!

P: Stout fellow. Think of it as cleaning the streets!

(Jack dashes off like a maniac, brandishing his blade.)

S: Gosh, Mr. Peabody, that was terrible!

P: Yes, Sherman, our job here is done. Back... to the WABAC machine, and home!

(back in Peabody's penthouse)

P: Well, Sherman, did you learn anything today?

S: History is gruesome?

P: Did you happen to notice anything about the procedure you witnessed?

S: History is stomach-turning?

P: Did you chance to observe the instrument being used?

S: He was an upper-class British twit, wasn't he?

P: I mean the instrument that he was using on the luckless trollop.

S: Gosh, no, Mr. Peabody! I just assumed he used a scalpel.

P: One might guess so, but the actual implement was more of a colloquial hand blade, popular in the 19th and early 20th century.

S: You're not going to say what I hope you're not going to say, are you, Mr. Peabody?

P: Why, Sherman, even one of your rudimentary perceptive abilities should have been able to discern the familiar form of a... Jack... knife!

S: Oh, Mr. Peabody!

(ba-whump)

(closing music)
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five tweets (May 2020)

Kip Williams sort of

@kiptw

*****

A regular reminder that I wouldn't have to think about deleting apps I use all the time if Android would let me delete the built-ins I have never touched, or even just move some of these space hogs off the internal drive and onto my SD card.

Please?

*****

The beef bibimbap bowls at Trader Joe's that I like so much were gone for a while for retooling. Whenever I'm opening one, it occurs to me the change was undoubtedly the glue that holds the box shut. "To hell with this pansy-ass gorilla glue! I want the stuff barnacles use!"

*****

Bear Lobby: "You keep saying these people were killed by bears, and it's just a lie! This guy fell out a window to his death when a bear chased him. This guy had a fatal heart attack while being mauled by a bear. This woman drove off the road when a bear got in her jeep..."

*****

"Metaphor? Parable?" "Well," she hesitated. "A fictional construct: shepherd, sheep and all those allusions." "Simile?" "I just didn't think it was... literal." An angelic voice said "You two are next." Glancing back at the milling flock, they ascended the chute. #MicroSFFH

*****

A train of thought: Ripping Yarns was a hilarious show that dealt with a dissection and reassembly of classic boy's stories ("Boy's Own," wasn't it?). Why doesn't someone do a version of it for girl's stories? 

But, hell, there are plenty of talented "gals" out there who know a lot more than I do on this subject and could probably find the right aspect of it for a truly ripping deconstruction. Assuming they haven't already. I mean, what do I know? I don't even live in the UK!

But I do think I'd enjoy to see a half dozen or so prime individual tales subverting the standard tropes of fiction designed to pry the hard-won non-decimal pennies from the clutches of the young girls of Britain. Won't someone do this for me? Also, send me money. Thanks.

*****

(The last one is three threaded tweets, last seen in the twelve days of Christmas, which is how one steps around the 280-character limit. Watch this space for more creative reuse of my stale old material!)

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Time and Tide

Grum waited patiently in his cave. He couldn't see, but he had other senses and other talents, and he was patient. Hungry he was, but he didn't need to eat every day. He could have lived where there was more food, but Grum was smart enough to know that too much food got you too much attention. Better to be patient and wait for food to come his way.

Grum had waited for three days already; he'd waited longer. Different foods came at different seasons. The summer season brought lightly dressed food with long hiking sticks and backpacks. Sometimes it brought food that hunted food. Grum smiled, remembering that time when he got one lugging a fresh deer. Two for the same work as one!

The winter season, on the other hand, brought food that was dressed very warmly, in many layers of cloth and leather and fur. Often, this food came sliding on a pair of smooth boards, or stumping on big flat feet of wood and woven leather. The food called these "skis" and "snowshoes," Grum knew, but he didn't worry about that much. He liked to sit and wait, sniff the air, and think about philosophy.

Oh, yes, philosophy. The minds Grum fed on gave him food for thought. He had an active mind, and he spent his idle time exploring grand ideas. Where did Grum come from? What was Grum's purpose? Where would Grum go after he stopped being Grum? Would he be food for someone else? Would he go to... he paused, thought back to the concept... heaven? Why did the seasons change from warm to cool to...

...Wait! Time for that later. Grum had work to do. Food was coming!

Grum got busy. His cave was off the path, and it took skill to get food to make the right choices to get within his grasp. He suggested the sight of something shining here to make it turn to the left. Next, an eye-blink impression of a small animal that way to move it forward. Closer... closer, where it got easier. Now he made it see a bush right there, bringing his food even closer. Now he could reach a thought into the smell center and make it think it smelled -- hm -- bread baking!

Yes! It worked again.

It was close enough now that Grum could simply make it walk into his home with a little befuddlement and an image of a place irresistible. As it often was, a scene from bygone days; a former home, members of a family now scattered or forever gone. Dinner walked right into Grum's kitchen. Musing on the transitory nature of life, Grum savored the contents of the mind for three or four long seconds -- enough material for more philosophical musings -- before mercifully silencing the thoughts. Grum was not cruel. Now he would feed.

Working methodically, Grum removed layers. Furry hat, earmuffs, mittens, boots, outer coat, inner sweater, another sweater, shirt, socks, thermal underwear -- must be colder than Grum thought, or else this one hated the cold. Grum knew cold from hot, but it wasn't a central concern. He kept working, removed hair, epidermis, fat, muscles, vessels, and tendons with the same care, putting the good parts in a neat pile and discards into two piles: one to be thrown in a pit for scavengers, and one for imperishable items, which Grum either needed to take care of soon, or find another cave with more room.

Preparation over, Grum sat down to feast. For a moment, time waited as he enjoyed anticipation: sweeter even than feasting. Grum pitied the lower animals, who did not anticipate. How dark their lives were. How meaningless! Grum wished he could help them somehow, but food was losing freshness now. Time to eat!

Grum began delicately, as always. He brought his meal back into the cave to where a natural cleft in the rock rose up and brought fresh air in. He sampled the meat, reflecting on the different flavors that chased one another and livened the blood. Salt, always lots of salt, but Grum prided himself on seeing past the obvious. What else? Minerals, sweet tastes, seasoning notes.

Ah! Little flavors that showed up at special times. The herb Rosemary. Evergreen scents lingering -- not from this mountain, but a sort of manufactured evergreen essence. Nutmeg, rum, dairy, all mingled -- Grum suddenly realized it was egg nog. Egg nog!

Realization struck him like a falling tree. He almost dropped the food. It was that time of year again! The special season! Grum knew, knew from many minds that this was a deeply important time of year. A philosophical time. If only he wasn't too late! He had a job to do.

Grum took in a big chewy mouthful and rummaged through the discard pile, found what he was looking for, and hung it on a finger of rock by the flue. He adjusted it, patting it to refine his mental image, and adjusted it again. Then he stepped back and pictured his work: a large, thick sock hung on the wall, waiting for a supernatural being, the embodiment of the season, to come and fill it with something wonderful. Something for Grum!

He just hoped he had been good enough.
.


Originally written in 2006, for the prompt "Tasting the Season."

CORPORATE CITIZEN

It was that dream again. Citizen Tromm perched awkwardly in a student-chair a decade too small for him, shivering a little as his hand, seemingly working on its own initiative, urgently rifled the contents of the still-familiar student-desk that pressed uncomfortably into his middle-aged bulk, trying not to be seen. “Cadet Tromm!” called Schoolmarm Hamil. “Is there something you wish to share with the rest of us?”

Citizen Tromm—Cadet Tromm—withdrew the errant hand as smoothly as possible, under the circumstances. The action did not go unseen. Cadet Snye, long since gone to his glory on the war-field of New Troy, brayed, “The bear has caught his paw in the honeycomb!” Of course, Hawknose Hamil had no word of criticism for this outburst. Tromm was a stinking schoolmarm’s pet. Tromm still longed to put some color on that smug face.

Schoolmarm Hamil silenced incipient laughter with a stock gesture. In the silence, Tromm became all too aware that he was now wearing a shapeless smock in place of his uniform, and his feet met cold tile. “Perhaps Cadet Tromm will share some of his knowledge with us?” A snicker rose around him. Awkwardly shifting his middle-aged gut, he stood, holding his textbook in front of his crotch, acutely aware of the flimsy white garment that was all that kept him from being entirely naked. 

The floor felt damply slippery under his bare feet. Following the pointer in Hamil’s clawlike hand, he tried to focus on the board at the front of the room, but could only make out the topic: “Worker Care,” and the first few words, “In the 21st century…” After that, the green scribbles became unruly and uncertain. The letters floated and bobbed in a glaring expanse the color of his blind spot.

“In the 21st century,” he began. 

“In the 21st century,” he began again. Citizen Gurt unkindly observed, “They had to have the 21st century twice, because the first time it didn’t take!” Gurt’s wit stung, as Gurt was his boss in the stylus factory, and had never even attended the same schools as Tromm. She was, however, somewhat attractive, and Tromm’s near-nakedness was even more embarrassing in her presence. Near naked? Tromm was now completely nude, and hoped nobody noticed that he had opened the concealing textbook in a weak bid for a bit more coverage. Over the titters of his classmates, Tromm was aware of dripping sounds from something he couldn’t see.

“In the 21st century, the care and health of workers became of primary concern to their corporations! We owe this insight to the research of the Welch Corporation, whose landmark court victory Welch v Doe et al established that employment carried responsibilities both in and out of the factory!” Laughter dried up momentarily as knowledge that had been poured assiduously into Tromm’s brain years ago spilled out. “As companies became able to, to demand conformance to commonsense precautions, some employees pushed back in Markes v Monsanto, arguing that if they were to act for their companies, even for their own benefit, that they should be paid while doing so! In accordance with fair business practice!” 

Tromm looked around triumphantly, expecting approval from his cadre-mates and was shocked to see instead faces of sorrow. Mouths hung open, as if in unnatural sympathy. Even Snye shook his head ruefully, and Gurt’s emerald eyes gleamed with a hint of a tear. Tromm yearned to go over and comfort her. He started to put the book down—thankfully, the smock was somehow back—and only then noticed that the pages were sodden. He was crying too! Gurt was crying! Snye, Philps, Green, Sten… all of them were weeping copiously, tears streaming down their young faces.

“There will be none of that!” Hamil, unaffected by the grief of inferiors, pulled the lever of the fire alarm by the door, only it was now next to the board. A siren commenced loud beeping outside. “Continue, Cadet Tromm.”

Tromm wiped his eyes with the back of a sleeve, which smeared without drying. “Health care was now automatically regarded as being on company time.” He wept as he spoke. “Physical fitness activities were now billable hours. It was decided in Hamps v Aqua Tec that meals and other aspects of nutrition were regarded as health care and thus a matter of employative interest. At this time, a single standard of personal identification became necessary for administrative and accountiatve simplication.” 

Tromm’s use of imaginary word forms went unnoticed by the class, which was now given over to emotion. His foot slid on the floor, though he didn’t fall, and the ripple in the wet floor extended outward neatly in all directions, bouncing back prettily from the far wall, like an animation he’d seen in a science video. The siren went unheeded. More water seemed to press against the door from the hallway, causing it to bow inwards. It ran in over the sill, adding to the half inch or so realistically lapping at the legs of the student-desks. Gurt’s blouse was doing interesting things, but Tromm’s attention was taken by the siren, insistent and rhythmic, beeping, beeping.

…Tromm opened his eyes. His bed-alarm was not beeping, and would not start for another four minutes. Another alarm had wakened him, one that had served to waken men for untold millennia. Bleary eyes discerned the door’s lighter rectangle in the gloom. His left hand pushed the flimsy sheet aside to join the blankets that had fallen away in the night as his right sought blindly for a small rectangle on the bed-table, sending his glasses and wallet plopping to the floor. He ignored them and sat, his feet finding the thin, cold rug by the bed as he swore and fumbled with renewed desperation. The bladder-alarm increased its signal helpfully. Finally, he felt the familiar plastic token with its raised numbers and rounded corners. Yes!

Citizen Tromm rose unsteadily and, clutching his time card, tottered swiftly to the bathroom.

.

I, Raven

I awoke, free of consumption and my mortal body, in a rather indefinite place without light or darkness in it.

A disembodied voice was all around me, vibrating the ether that surrounded me. Or perhaps the ether vibrated and was the voice. I still don't know. VIRGINIA, it said, YOU MAY PASS TO YOUR ETERNAL REWARD NOW. 

UNLESS YOU WOULD RATHER NOT.

I asked: Why would I rather not pass to my reward?

IF THERE IS ANYTHING LEFT UNDONE, OR ANYTHING YOU FEEL YOU WANT TO CHANGE, YOU MAY GO BACK UNTIL IT IS DONE.

I thought about it. By sickening and dying, I had left on earth my most pitiful husband, Allan, whose melancholy knew no bounds. Anything and everything seemed to put him into a brown study from which I could not rouse him. But what if I could tell him, from beyond the grave, that all would be well, that he would find peace? That he need suffer nevermore?

All right, I said, I shall go back. I will talk to him and tell him.

YOU MAY NOT GO BACK IN YOUR OWN FORM. THAT IS DEAD.

Then what do I do?

SUFFICIENT TIME HAS ELAPSED NOW THAT YOU CAN ANIMATE SOMETHING THE SIZE OF A DOG.

Then how should I speak to him?

...No answer. I had an idea.

Must I choose my form?

YES.

Birds can speak, I said. I choose to go as a talking bird.

VISUALIZE YOUR CHOICE.

... I tried to think of a South American pajaro, with its large vocabulary, but somehow the thought of all those colors in the midst of Allan's gloomy monochromatic schema was incongruous. Thinking of Allan, in fact, was a mistake. I was not a parrot, a cockatoo, a paraquito or conure, but a great black raven.

YOU HAVE CHOSEN. YOU WILL REMAIN AS YOU ARE FOR THE LIFE OF YOUR NEW VESSEL.

Oh, thanks ever so. Is there anything else you haven't told me about?

…

Hello?

…

Silence.

Well, then, I might as well get on with it, I thought. I spread my wings and glided down, down. I seemed to have innate knowledge on what to do, which was a relief. I practiced speaking, which was more difficult. I concentrated on one word, the word that would tell him there would be no more strife or suffering in the next world. Nevermore, I would say.

I could see the rooftops of Baltimore below me, and I quickly found the center of town and glided above streets I had traveled in life. It was nearly midnight, but I knew Allan would be up. This was his time of night. He'd be in his library, drinking himself into tears, as usual, and possibly he'd even be hard at work, scribbling words, thousands of words, until his right hand was in such agony, he would curse and shake it out and drink more. I knew him well, you see, but I loved him still. As always, the window of the room was closed tight, but a hallway window was open. I flew in and landed. There was scarcely room for my wings here, so I walked, like a pigeon, to his chamber door. Closed, as always. I tapped on it.

Inside, I could hear him crashing around. Something glass dropped to the floor and bounced, and he swore at it. I tapped again, and heard his heavy steps treading to the door. He opened it and stared out over my head into the hallway. "Virginia?" he breathed. Dear Allan! He had thought of the one question I could not answer. I was Virginia, but I was not. This seemed the wrong time to say "nevermore." Nettled, I tapped the toe of his boot with my beak softly, and he looked down at me.

"Oh, ho!" he said, with drunken heartiness. "And who are you? Tell me your name, my stygian friend!"

"Nevermore," I rasped, walking past him and looking at the room, at once familiar and utterly alien because of my new angle of view. I stepped around a fresh puddle of liquor. There was not a decent perch to be seen, so I flew up and sat on the head of Pallas and looked down at him. I knew I looked ungainly, but perhaps with his usual gloom, I was the right choice to tell him to despair no more.

He looked up at me, and mumbled. "Escaped from a circus," he said. "Somebody taught it to talk. Ha!" He was silent, and I could see him working his muscles of cogitation. I tried to retain my dignity, but suddenly something under my wing began to itch me, and without thinking, I began scratching it with my beak. "Wretch!" he shouted, and I stopped in mid-action and looked at him. "Tell me who sent you!"

"Nevermore," I said, without thinking.

"Leave me alone! I just want to drink. To drink and forget!"

He meant to forget me, and I know he meant it about drinking. I repeated, "Nevermore!"

That set him off. He asked me a bunch of questions. Stupid questions, rhetorical questions, touched -- or perhaps tetched -- with classical allusions. Oh, he knew his books. He read living authors for his bread and butter, but the dead were his chief friends, and his library was a graveyard of them. It was like a family argument, and I was armed only with one word. It mattered not! Each question, he phrased so that my sole answer would suffice to drive him farther and farther into the arms of drunken sadness. I was beginning to enjoy aggravating his mood, so resolved was he to wallow in his marsh of woes.

Finally, he ran out of words. I, of course, had run out long ago. He glared at me. I suppose I glared back at him. I know I was not beautiful. Why couldn't I have come back as a budgerigar? I don't know what he expected of me. He sank back in a stupor, staring up at me. I fluttered down to the floor and pushed my way out into the hallway and then went out the window. I passed the window of his chamber and peered in, and he was still staring up at the bust of Pallas that I had vacated. I am uncertain whether he even knew I had left.

And what was left for me? I thought about standing in a roadway and letting a carriage run over me, but would that not be the sin of suicide? It occurred to me that I was lucky not to be a parrot, for they live (I have heard) almost a century. Surely a raven could not live so abominably long as that! I therefore resolved to live the life I had been given, but I should live on my own terms. I would not eat insects, but find places where I could receive human food. Perhaps I would use my speech to find a human companion. An owner, if I must say it, who might let me live inside. Would I have to live in a cage? Well, so be it. I had no desire to stay outside, a plaything of the elements.

I am pleased to report that I resisted the temptation to teach all the crows in my dear husband's neighborhood to pronounce the word that so vexed him. 

He will never know how lucky he was. He never did.
.

What I Did for Love

I was fairly relaxed that morning, just lying in. Nowhere I had to go that early in the day, nobody expected anything from me. I wasn't aware of just how relaxed I was until my quiet was shattered by the melodic tones of Venus, calling my name as she might call a cat.

"Oh, BACCH-us!" she said, completely ending a dream in which I was floating happily down a great purple river of finely aged grape juices. I looked around unhappily, quickly determined that there was no river, and closed my eyes to try and go back.

"Bacchus, honey, open your eyes! It's morning. Don't you want to see your sweet Venus?" I peeped once and closed my eyes again. Normally, the Goddess of Love is a sight for sore eyes, but that morning, my eyes were actually sore, and no sight was sweet enough for that. "No," I said, ungraciously, then remembered my manners. "Please go away."

"Bacchus, I've just seen the sweetest little man, and I'd like to meet him, just for a little while, and you're just the one to help me do it."

Now I was awake. Not 100% awake yet, but enough that I knew I wasn't going to be sleeping again anytime soon, so I might as well just open my eyes and face the revoltingly bright, cheerful Olympus morning and my demure torturer. "What," I asked in the loudest voice that didn't make my head throb unpleasantly, "Would make you go away, Venus?"

"Speak up, darling," she said brightly, "And it'll help if you point your face in the general direction of my ears. Up here." She pointed helpfully. I suppose it was my fault she always wore that tunic of hers, and gave the impression of always wearing trick underwear, when in fact... how can I put this? ...she didn't.

"WHAT DO YOU--" My voice hurt. I tried again, letting clear enunciation carry the burden instead of volume. "What. Do. You. Want. Venus?" That was better, but my lips didn't care for it. There's no satisfying everybody.

She started explaining, in the patient tones of a high-school boy's dream substitute teacher. "I saw the most adorable little mortal, Bacchus. In the water. And I thought, well, wouldn't it just be sweet if I could go down and give him the nicest night of his life?" Her tone was fairly dripping with ambrosia. Now, I'm not normally an ambrosia man, but there's no denying it has its appeal, and it was certainly reaching me, in spite of -- or maybe because of -- my weakened state.

"Well, what do you want -me- to do about it?" I said, then realized that I had as much as given in to her. At least, that's how she would interpret it, and I was beginning to think that if I just agreed with her, she might leave me alone so I could look behind my eyelids for that river of grappa once again. "Why don't you just go down there yourself?"

"Well, you see..." she said, hesitantly, slipping around behind me at the same time, "there's just this little difficulty." With as much smoothness as, say, the god of oil, she had raised me to a sitting position, and started rubbing the knots and frays out of my neck and upper back. She raised her voice a tad to be heard over the involuntary sighs and groans I didn't know I was making. "He's the sweetest thing, but he's just a little bit of a stick in the mud." She leaned in closer to whisper in my ear, and I could feel her pressing against my back. Hangover or not, I was starting to feel like I could do great things.

But I knew that if I agreed right away to her little assignation, she'd stop persuading me, so I continued to protest. "You don't need me to help you," I said, leaning back just ever so slightly. "You know you've got what it takes. If you set your mind to it --" I tilted my head up and back to look up at her, which practically put me in her lap. "-- you could make a High Priest jump over the altar."

"Well, to tell the truth, that's almost what I want to do." She wrinkled her nose conspiratorially at me. "He's not quite a High Priest, but he's a Bishop, and his church is just so stuffy! You have no idea what things are like down there nowadays!" I just shrugged. I knew that people still pressed the grape, they still drank when they could, and the little world below us still turned as it always had. "So what I want you to do, Bacchus-kins (I'm afraid this is the closest translation I can render for her endearment in terms that make sense to you.), is to go down there and get him just a little teeny bit... you know."

"Swacked," I said. "Spifflicated. Falling-down friendly."

"Tipsy," she said. "Just so I can talk to him and he won't be such a prune."

"And why, my sweet Venus, should I do this for you?" I asked, quietly.

"Well," she said, idly touching one of the leaves I was wearing, "after all, I am well aware of your love of feminine beauty."

"Yes," I admitted, "I do have an eye for the fairer sex."

"And I know that you would just be so sad if your sweet little Bacchantes all started saying, 'Not tonight, Bacchus! We have a headache.'"

I looked up at where she was still beaming sweetly at me. I shaded my eyes from her brilliance, feeling a headache of my own forming behind a spot between my eyebrows, and realized that my forehead was knotting itself. Like it or not, there was wisdom in her words. "I'll see what I can do," I said.

---

It was late when I returned. She was waiting up for me, and I could see the threatening shadow of a snit clouding her fine features. "And just where have you been?" she demanded. The ambrosia had been replaced with icicles, but at the moment, I didn't care.

"I've been plying your little Bishop with the fruit of the vine, as you asked, dear cousin."

"And did that take you the entire night? Is he made of the stuff of Hercules?"

"No, not Hercules. I plied him, and got him just ever so slightly tipsy, as you asked." I put a certain emphasis on those last three words. "And, as you desired, he became less stern, less unbending..."

"And why did you not summon me, so that I could enjoy his company? I was all ready for him -- I even dressed for him!" Now that she mentioned it, I could see she was wearing a black robe, such as a choir singer in the Bishop's church would wear. If I'd been in a better mood, I'd have found it fetching.

"He was in the mood for different game, my Lady."

"What ever do you mean, different game?"

"I mean that I have spent the last two hours evading the drunken affection of a Bishop on earth. As he drank, he kept leaning to me, telling me the most tedious details of his life. I know enough about it now that I could be a Bishop myself, if I ever decide to leave here and set up shop on Earth below! And with the fourth drink, he started to pursue me. Around and around the cathedral that wretch chased me. I should have just flown away, but the cavernous place was so large, I got lost..."

"Oh, my! Who ever knew he was so inclined?" Venus pretended shock, and pulled the front of her robe a few inches with her fingers in ventilation, as if she was contemplating a faint. "Well, I certainly can't hold you responsible for that."

Emotions chased themselves across her fair face. Her cold anger gave way to warm embarrassment, then that was replaced with wide innocence -- one of her best effects -- and finally, she inclined to me and gave me a look of forgiveness. "You have done your best," she said, graciously. "Though I am disappointed, you will find I am still generous.

"Your little followers -- the ladies, I mean -- will be as warm to you as ever. Now you must excuse me. I go to change my garments and rest to overcome my sorrow at this turn of events."

And she was off. Generous as always, she had allowed me to do what I would have done anyway, and all I had to pay for it was to waste an entire day drinking sherry with a lascivious clergyman when all I wanted was to sleep. I watched her walking away in those satiny robes and knew what I would dream about.

the meaning

.

It was merciful.

There I was, looking down at the contorted shape that had been my car, thinking that the idea I'd been trying to scribble on the back of one of my business cards probably hadn't been worth it, after all. As the flames that started in the puddle under the engine quickly engulfed it, I concluded that this wasn't going to be one of those near-death experiences, and it only took a short look at my body to confirm that, to paraphrase some Madison Avenue type, death was the new life.

I watched myself for a few more seconds, thinking I hadn't done so badly. I wasn't too far out of shape. My face and form weren't all that ungainly. I actually regretted what the fire was about to do to me in there. Closed casket, definitely. I couldn't watch. I pulled away and took stock of my situation.

Forty-five years old, and already, I belonged to the ages. The small design firm I had managed to keep solvent was someone else's concern now. By rights, it should pass to Dave and Irma, who I'd come to rely on more and more, but I wasn't sure they could do it, legally. I hoped they would at least start a new company together -- I think they'd be good at it, even if they didn't seem to have the confidence.

At the moment, I had nothing. Fair's fair, I didn't really need anything. I could float around. Was I dressed? Wearing, perhaps, a ghostly pair of Dockers with a pressed shirt and a vest? It didn't feel like it, and it didn't feel unlike it. Whatever. It was sufficient. So now what? Do I do something? Do I go somewhere? Heaven? Purgatory? Relive my life now past, like the movie about that small-town cemetery?

What is the meaning of life?

The thought came to my mind like any other, but there was something different about it. A different voice, or a different typeface. It wasn't my own thought. I realized I now had a task. Homework, or maybe a final exam. I had to figure out the meaning of life. 

My life? Life in general? No answer. Any explanation apparently has to come from me. The clock is ticking. Use only a Number Two pencil. As the emergency vehicles started showing up, I willed myself along the way I was going when I had so rudely interrupted myself. Home. I was heading home.

Home. My progress was a little unsteady. I was distracted by things I saw along the way. There was so much going on along the familiar route. I saw a family of mice in a culvert. How could they live there? What would they do when it rained? They reminded me suddenly of my own family, and my -figurative- heart fell. My family! They didn't know yet, did they? I hurried along a little faster, then paused again to look at one of those roadside crosses people put up when someone they know is killed on or near the road. It barely registered on me when I was alive, but it had been there for two years. The flowers on it hadn't been there for two years; they looked a week old at the oldest. Would Elaine put up one of those for me? Elaine! I stopped looking at the cross and made for our apartment.

Once there, I determined that I could pass through a wall. No real surprise there. Elaine was in the living room watching a kid show with our two boys. The stuff six- and eight-year-olds watch. They were on the floor about a foot from the screen. I went to Elaine and tried to get her attention. I think I was relieved that nothing I said or did got through to her. I tried with Rodney, and then with Jacob. I even checked to see if I could mess with the TV. Nothing. Then the phone rang.

I didn't want to watch. I wanted to fly away and not think about it. I was strangely unemotional about my own death, but the idea of watching my family cope with it was painful. Still, I stayed and watched as she told Rod to turn the sound down, picked up the phone, confirmed who she was with a nod the caller couldn't see. Then she got the news. Disbelief and shock caused her to stagger. She yelled at Rod to turn the set down again, then turned away and shielded the mouthpiece and her mouth with a hand, as if she could keep the bad news from leaking out. She asked a few questions. Are you sure? When did it...? Was anybody else...? The voice at the other end answered, offered official condolence, gave her a number to write down. She absently drifted as far as the cord would let her from the living room and called her sister Doris. Asked her to take care of letting the rest of the family know. Pause. No, she said, they don't know yet. Pause. I will. Longer pause. Yes, she said, yes, please.

She hung up again. She looked back at the doorway to the living room where our boys didn't know yet. Stood looking at the silent phone. I'm off now, she said, and the TV got louder. Then she sat at the kitchen table and buried her face in her arms. I wanted to put my hands on her shoulders and stop them from shaking, but I couldn't. I could only watch as she got control of herself and wiped her face. Then she called to the boys to turn the TV off and come into the kitchen. They tried to argue a little, and she said no, come in now. And because she didn't raise her voice, they were curious and came in, and they looked at her face and said, what's wrong, Mom?

And she told them. 

And she said, we're packing some clothes and we're going to visit your aunt and uncle for a couple of days. And I watched them hug each other and cry and try to comfort each other, and I thought, I really had a good family. They picked out some clothes and toys and put them in the big suitcase we used last summer to go to Oregon, and every now and then one of them broke down and the others were there, and they got in the car and set out on the sixty-mile drive to her capable sister's house.

I followed along. It was a pretty quiet procession. Rodney had to go to the bathroom, and they stopped for that. A couple of times, they just pulled off the road so she could cry some more, but for the most part, she kept it together in front of the boys. I watched them and cringed when another car got too close, and asked myself the question. What is the meaning of life?

What had my life meant? What did my life mean to them? What did their lives mean?

I thought back over my life, now conveniently completed. It seemed like my memories were actually clearer than they had been when I was alive. Was I distracted by life when I was experiencing it? Was this a fringe benefit of being dead? Whatever, it was easy to review my twoscore years and five. There was my great-grandpa who died when I was four. I was four, and they were explaining to me. Nineteen, and I'm getting the news about Grandpa Ben. Twenty, and it's Grandma Alice. 

I wondered if Doris had called my folks in Florida yet. 

I felt close to the meaning. It wasn't things. It wasn't stuff. Ideas? Ideals? 

Those things were important, but they weren't the meaning. They were things we had, things we did, to get close to other people. Or maybe keep them away. Were people the meaning? I watched our minivan pull into another rest stop. Elaine went to the vending machines, bought a bottle of cold water, and they set off again, sharing the water. Was sharing the meaning? I noted that Elaine was driving very carefully. Good girl. Might as well learn from my mistake! She had to take care of the family now, this new family that was shaping itself to get along with three. Rod was already starting to move into his niche, taking some of the load off of Elaine. I wanted to hug him.

I sighed. Metaphorically, if not corporeally. I thought I was kind of detached about this death thing, but I realized that I was really regretting it. I had wanted to live a lot longer. That was when it came to me. The meaning of life.

The meaning of life, I said, phrasing it in my mind (as if writing with a number 2 pencil), is to live as long as you can. We surround ourselves with others to form entanglements so that we'll be sure and try to live as long as possible. Life wants life. If we're alone, we might succumb to a momentary impulse or get careless and lose the thread. 

We intellectualize it, but it's a flame that wants to burn as long as it possibly can. It's as simple as that. The meaning of life is to live as long as possible. That was my final answer. I stopped following the car and looked up at the clouds and the stars and the moon. That's my answer, I thought. How did I do?

The foreign thought spoke in my brain again. Without words, I now had the impression that this answer had been satisfactory. I had passed the first part of the test.

First part? That was the first part? I looked at the cars below and realized they were starting to look indistinct, as if they were farther away. Not smaller, just harder to see. Words formed in my mind.

What is the meaning of death?

I groaned inwardly.
.

Family Talk

.

"On one night of the year…"

Kurt drove for hours, back to his home town. Flying would have taken longer, so he endured the boring drive along interstates through plowed fields of crops, then state roads to the small town he'd grown up in. The town he always felt he'd escaped from. 

In spite of himself, he was looking eagerly for signs of the familiar. He nodded faintly at a red barn on the outskirts of town, pursed his lips at the closed drive-in theater next to it. The town sign, with medallions for Lions Club and Rotary, could have been the same one he'd left behind 17 years ago. The mall he passed was new to him, though it already seemed to be on the skids, with the anchor store's space at the end given over to a flea market, and two other stores in the middle combined in a church bordered by a tanning salon and a video store.

Downtown, familiar buildings stood, one or two still with the same merchants he'd known as a boy. Others had new occupants, which seemed almost like squatters. Kort's Dry Goods still had their name set proudly in black and white tiles in the front entryway, left unchanged by the Dollar Store that used the space now. Goldberg's still had its sign up, but the store was dusty, and nothing remained inside but some boxes and parts of mannequins. These reminded him of why he was there, and he sighed, turning onto a side street to pass one more familiar address before he got where he was going.

And there it was; the family house. Kurt parked across the street from the two-story brick building with the white wooden pillars on the porch. Lights inside discouraged him from walking up the steps to see if the stains were still there from the time he'd spray painted his five-speed bike. One of the lights was in his old bedroom, and he briefly thought of ringing the bell and asking to look at it. He sat for five more minutes, hand on his chin, sometimes nodding to himself, before he started the car again and drove to the motel he had selected for the night.

"Crosby family still own this place?" he asked the clerk who came out of a back room when he rang a bell on the desk. "James Crosby?" He had a mental image of a tall, red-faced bald man who took no nonsense from anyone.

"Old Mr. Crosby passed on in '02," said the young man behind the counter. "His son sold his interest to a cousin lives in Council Bluffs, and my dad manages the place for him. Cousin's related to the Crosbys, but his name's Bennet." He looked at Kurt's signature on the form with no sign of recognition. "If you haven't eaten supper yet, there's a Dairy Queen a block over, and Plantation Inn is four blocks beyond that. Their chicken is pretty good." 

"I used to eat at the Plantation Inn every couple of weeks," said Kurt. The clerk smiled politely, without much interest.

"Here's your room key. You're in 15A, around back. TV's got basic cable plus HBO. If you need anything, just dial 0." 

"Do you have wi-fi?"

"Sorry, no."

A half hour later, Kurt was walking back from the Plantation Inn with a steaming cardboard container of chicken with dumplings. He paused by the gate of a cemetery and seemed to feel a sudden chill. In the fading light, he peered as well as he could, but couldn't see far back enough to make out the stone he was looking for. 

He stepped closer, observing that the gate was designed to keep cars out, but wouldn't have any effect on a pedestrian, other than requiring a step around one end. The sign said CLOSED AFTER DARK. Kurt nodded again, to nobody in particular, and continued back to his room, warming himself on the box he held.

He ate slowly, relishing the food, which still tasted the way he'd remembered it, flipped through the channels on the TV, finding no local programming, At 8:30, he set an alarm on his watch and went to sleep on the bed with his clothes on.

His watch woke him at 11:15. He got up reluctantly. He put on a dark sweater, and then turned the TV on and flipped channels again for five minutes. He looked at the box that had contained chicken. It was still empty. He looked at his watch. He checked through a black bag with a flashlight and batteries in it. He looked out the room door, feeling the night's temperature. He put on a dark jacket as well. 11:45. Kurt sighed and walked out of the room, carrying the flashlight and the black bag and a camp chair carried in a shoulder tote.

He walked quietly down the sidewalk, avoiding any appearance of furtiveness. At the cemetery, he walked around the gate and then headed toward the back, turning the flashlight on when he was a few yards in. He took a couple of turns, pausing once where two similar lanes diverged, pulling on his lower lip and choosing the right-hand fork. A few yards later, the flashlight beam picked out the stone he was looking for. "Dad," said Kurt. He checked his watch. 11:55. His stomach growled, and he tapped it absently. He took out the camp chair and sat down to wait.

At midnight, he reluctantly turned to the gravestone. "Dad?" he said, and waited. After a minute, "Dad?" again. "Dad, it's me. Kurt."

"Kurt?" said a voice so quiet it might have been his imagination.

"Yes, Dad, it's me."

"Is it that day?" said the voice, almost as quietly.

"Yes, Dad, it's that day. Dad, I wanted to say something to you..."

"You left me alone."

"I'm sorry, Dad. That's what I came to..."

"You left me to die in that place," said the voice, still quietly, with barely any inflection or emotion.

"Dad, I didn't have a choice. I had my family to..."

"You left me there. I used to call to you, and you only came once a month to see me. All the years I took care of you."

"Dad, I had... I have... two children. They had to come first. My duty was..."

"You didn't care that I was rotting there. Just like I'm rotting now. I was dying inside, losing my mind bit by bit. You could have taken me home."

"Dad, I did the best I could. It was too expensive to have you with us, and you were too..."

"Your grandfather lived with us until he died. He never went into a home. We took care of him. He was part of the family. I was part of your family."

"Dad, I couldn't do it. I was working, Margaret was working. The girls couldn't have..."

"You left me to die there. How could you do it?"

"Dad, listen to me. I was raising a..."

"A son's duty is to his father."

"Dad, I'm sorry. Just let me..."

"You couldn't wait to leave me. You ran off. You didn't want to work at the garage with me. I couldn't do it by myself."

"I was going crazy here. It was killing me to..."

"Some day you'll know what it's like. Some day your children will do the same to you. You've taught them to be like you."

"Dad, that's not..."

"I have nothing more to say to you."

"Dad, just let me talk." Kurt waited. There was no response. "Dad, the way you were acting then... I couldn't have you in the same house with my daughters. I couldn't have you unsupervised. You kept trying to do things. You'd turn the stove on and forget it. You could have burned the house down. Dad?"

There was no response. Kurt looked at his watch again, sighed. He folded up the chair and worked his way back to the gate. He heard a voice, urgent, entreating, and stopped to listen, switching the light off. The voice came from somewhere in the darkness, from another part of the cemetery. It was a woman.

"But where? Where did you leave it? You wanted to provide for us, but we don't know where it is!" There was a pause. Kurt couldn't hear anything. "Please, just give me a clue.... no, I know you did... do... but now we need your help! Please!"

Kurt sighed and turned the flashlight on. He shook his head. "They talk to you," he murmured, "But you can't make them listen."

Another turn and he was out of the cemetery. Two blocks, and he was back in his room. He undressed and turned on the TV again, falling asleep in front of it. In the morning, he drove back the way he came, stopping only for another box of chicken. Carry out.

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©2013 by Kip Williams