Odd Remains
Sitting across a desk from an adversary who has the power to hold me down - hold me back, I feel an odd orange presence at my right shoulder. I realize it’s my nan, dead eleven years, wearing a coral-colored dress – looking bright and healthy, scalpel-sharp, with a sparkle in her eye. Without the mantle of bitterness and anger that settled about her shoulders in her eighties – a frail angry bird pecking at everyone. It’s the Nana of my childhood, the one my own children never knew – who jumped in the sand at the beach and rode the roller-coaster with me when no one else would. I feel her shoulder next to mine in this room filled with prickly air – it helps, and I think clearly, say my piece, stand up for myself. Make Nana smile. She doesn’t drift away in a pouf, nor does she fade away like the fantastical Cheshire Cat. She transforms instantaneously into a tin of tuna, which drops to the floor at my feet. Meeting over, I pick up my tuna and make my exit. Later, at home, I put the tin in the pantry with other ordinary tins and bottles. I do know that it’s just a tin of tuna – and that I imagined my young and lovely nan. Yet I can’t seem to make a tuna casserole or feed it to the cat. |
excerpts from:
Odd Remains published by Eleusinian Press, 2013 www.eleusinianpress.co.uk Doll’s Breath Imagination is new at four. The bed fits the elbow of the room just beneath a shaded window. Something stirs when the light goes out, and yellow shadows play in the dark when the moon hangs high. Dolls hide with painted smiles. Do they smile behind the closet door? They carry their tiny blankets to bed. A face buried in smooth whiteness breathes in cotton-covered fright, listening for the terrible warmth of doll’s breath. |
RECENT WRITING
The Airing of the Grievances
Festivus is old now, in human years; I looked it up online. I got him when I was seven, and he’s nine now: officially a senior dog. He spends most of his time dozing under the kitchen table, or sunning himself on the back porch. Still, Festivus is my friend – often my only friend – and I don’t want him to suffer in his old age. I remember the day I got him. I was curled up in a corner of our beat-up, ugly couch, watching Bill Nye the Science Guy on TV. He was talking about bridges, and I was so absorbed in the screen that I didn’t hear Pop drive up. When I heard him bust through the front door, I suddenly realized that I still had my sneakers on, curled beneath my skinny frame on the couch. No shoes on the couch. Probably a rule left over from when Mom was still around. That day, my father didn’t notice my transgression; he was stoked about something, a big grin on his face. I remember how weird it seemed for Pop to come in from working all day in the brutal South Florida sun without his usual bad-tempered grimace. “Come here, Riley – you need ta see whut I got in the truck.” And he hurried back outside to the narrow concrete driveway, with me close behind. “Look there, boy,” he pointed inside the cab of the truck, and I saw Festivus for the first time. He was brown and white, with a black patch around his left eye. As soon as Pop opened the door of the truck, Festivus jumped out and ran to me, wedging himself between my short seven-year-old legs. “You been pesterin’ me to get you a dog, boy – so there he is. You like ‘im?’ I didn’t know what to say. Of course, I liked him. Ever since we had read a story in school about a boy with a faithful dog, I had wanted one more than anything. The dog in the story was named Buster; I just knew that if I had a faithful dog named Buster, I could win a prize at the science fair like the boy in the story. “His name’s Festivus,” Pop said, snorting with laughter. “The festival for the rest of us, ya know?” I had no idea what Pop was talking about. Festivus. What a lame name for a boy’s dog. Pop kept laughing, lighting a cigarette at the same time. I could feel Festivus shaking a little as he stood between my legs. Desire made me more brave than usual. “Could I maybe call him Buster?” Pop answered, “No, boy. I told you his name is Festivus. He won’t like you if you try to call him somethin’ else.” want to read the entire short story? look here: https://www.facebook.com/writerginna/ |
Cat Watching
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