Writer Advice

Winners of the 2007 Writer Advice Flash Prose Contest are:

First Place

A Late Summer Chore

bella2

By Daniel F. Rousseau

“Get rid of that damned dog once and for all,” my father swore, smashing his fist against my cheekbone. I stumbled backwards, away from the breakfast table. Tears burned my eyes as I turned and snatched the Stevens .22 from the gun rack, stuffing a box of Winchester hollow-points into my jeans pocket as I descended the back steps. The screen door slammed behind me. I’d catch hell for it later, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting this dreaded chore done.

I whistled softly for Lady Bayou. She whimpered from where she lay beside the porch. Her moist brown eyes were reduced to two pools of agony and she didn’t leap to greet me anymore. There was no royal thrust of her proud head, no long bugling challenges from the ruby throat of a hound excited by the fresh scent of a new hunt. Instead, she rolled over, dragging herself up, barely sitting, half lying, using toenails of her hind paws to frantically attack a new seizure of itching. Red mange had stripped her once-beautiful black and tan coat until only raw blood and scabs remained. She reeked of the greasy mix of crankcase oil and yellow sulfur I had slathered on her. It was supposed to cure, but every night she cried those wailing cries that nearly broke my heart.

“C’mon, girl,” I coaxed, kneeling and extending a free hand. “Want some milk?” She bellied across the dirt towards the tip of the rifle barrel. Sniffed it. Then, trotted at my heels down the path between rows of scraggly purple and red zinnias.

At the milk house she sat scratching herself while I shooed away a tangle of cats and borrowed a small pail. I filled it with fresh warm milk, pouring some on the concrete floor so the cats wouldn’t tag along. Then I whistled for Lady Bayou to follow as I opened the corral gate to the pastures beyond.

She trotted along behind, paying no attention to the orange cheddar sun rising above the palmetto hammocks to the east. Her bare, floppy-eared head swung side-to-side, her sagging jowls drooling and her nose chuffing across the grass, skimming the silver dew-diamonds of moisture for scent of rabbits or coons or whatever else may have passed this way.

I led her along the cow paths through the pines to the barbed wire fence at the end of our five-thousand acres. There I stopped. To the west lay the Slough, stretching to the horizon in a maze of cabbage-palm thickets and marshy flats, and bordered on the north by the sluggish and winding Loxahatchee River. There, in the early morning heat, nearly out of earshot of the ranch house and barn, I placed the pail of milk on the ground. Lady Bayou began to drink. Her tongue made those same soft lapping sounds that made me laugh when she was a puppy.

I raised the rifle tightly against my shoulder, squinting down the barrel, aligning the front-sight bead with the V-sight and placing it squarely on the imaginary X in the middle of her forehead. The familiar click of the cocked hammer caused her head to rise. She paused a moment, then resumed drinking.

“Get rid of that damned dog once and for all” still rang in my ears as sweat and new tears stung my eyes. The August morning burned like a blister on my heart. Somewhere in the silence a cardinal began to sing, “pretty-girl, pretty-girl.” I squeezed the trigger. And on that morning, on the spot where the late summer chore took place, where the only two sounds were the gentle lapping of a hound’s tongue in a pail of milk, and the cardinal’s cheerful call, only the cardinal was startled by the sudden spit-crack report of the rifle.
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Daniel Rousseau , a fifth-generation Floridian, is currently working on a young adult novel, THE BROWN PONY, a father/son conflict set against the prairies and sloughs of south Florida. In 2006, he won first-place essay at the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Workshop.

Second Place

OMNIA

amina

By WC Vasquez

I cannot stare at a night sky splashed with fireworks without remembering my summer of metamorphosis. During that red, white, and blue Bicentennial, I lost thirty-one pounds and grew six inches. I grew to six feet because my father was a tall man, and I shrank to 160 pounds because my father was also a man of rage.

Early one June morning, he entered my bedroom without knocking and broke my jaw after discovering something he couldn’t bear. How easily I was changed by that one fist: with my jaw wired shut, I survived on orange Gatorade and Campbell’s tomato soup sipped through a straw. No more chocolate cupcakes, potato chips, or deep-fried burritos--the emotional mortar that had held me together during middle school.

As my father hunched forward in his chair watching Arthur Fiedler conduct the Boston Pops on TV, I lay on the couch trying to time my half-notes of breath with Fiedler’s slashing baton. My birthday was also July 4 th but unlike the sparkler-spinning kids in the rest of the country, I had nothing to celebrate.

Summer ended. My jaw healed. I began high school as Thin Benjamin.

Like every freshman at Moss Creek High, I was required to take a class called Omnia. This hybrid of literature, art, and music was supposed to expand our sensibilities beyond “Welcome Back Kotter” and KC and the Sunshine Band.

On that first day of Omnia, I plopped myself in a front row desk. I chose that seat because every sticky booger flicked into my brown hair and every pink eraser hurled against my ear would be visible to the teacher. I didn’t need a savior; I only needed a referee who would mutter “Enough” when the sharpened pencil spears aimed at my neck littered the floor like a yellow splinter storm.

“Hey, Donut Dick, what happened to you?” James Tierney said as he walked past me. I had no answer for him or anyone else who pestered me with questions and taunts.

Behind me I heard someone whisper, “Maybe he’s dying.”

Mr. McCauley was the last person to enter our classroom. He was either a young 30 or an old 25. Iíve never been good with ages. I was only 15 but already I felt old and hollow.

“I am Mr. McCauley and this is Omnia,” he said, wiping a long blond curl from his eye. “Omnia is the Latin word for all, everything.” He stretched out his arms and jumped toward the cottage cheese ceiling tiles, embracing the air. “Those of you in Senora Baxter’s Spanish class should know what nada means. Never, under any circumstances, confuse nada with omnia.”

People began to snicker and groan, but I sat up straighter in my desk.

After taking roll, he walked to the blackboard and wrote three words in a loopy style that covered the entire surface. His gold wedding band scraped the blackboard as he wrote. He was left-handed, like me. Before he spoke again, he looked at all twenty of us. I shivered when he looked at me--and then said, “So much of our lives is based on these three words. Can anyone read them?”

Mandy Lewis, a red-headed girl who always had a snake of pink gum hanging from her mouth, tilted her head and said, “One Live Jew? Is that it?”

Greg Foster snarfled a glob of mucus before saying, “Oh yeah. We learned about the Nazis last year. They were really mean and stuff.”

Mr. McCauley closed his eyes and repeated Greg’s words aloud, as if he were trying to decide if he had just heard the most profound or most banal sentence ever pronounced in the history of mankind.

“Good try, but not quite,” he said to both of them.

The faceless voices behind me took turns trying to read his scrawl of words--they were all wrong. He hadn’t written “On Lucky Joe” or “J. Lobe Yowl.”

I stared into Mr. McCauley’s blue eyes and ignored the subtle ache in my jaw. For just a moment I saw my father standing in my bedroom doorway three months earlier as he discovered me masturbating to a magazine picture of teen idol Vince Van Patten. My boyhood crush.

Inhaling everything in the room--the fear and giddiness of the unknown--I opened my mouth widely and said in a clear voice, “I Love You.”

Mr. McCauley bowed to me and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.’
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Without stopping, WC Vasquez can run from the bottom step of the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse to the very top step...as all writers would do.

Third Place

Say Hello

By Kay Jordan

During his month of observation Hal learned that Cyndi worked at First State Bank and attended yoga classes twice a week. She collected vegetarian cookbooks, kept a stash of chocolate in a shoebox at the back of her closet and used panty liners with wings. What Hal did not know was whether Cyndi would live or die. That depended on the first woman he met on the street where Cyndi lived. If the woman said hello, Cyndi would live. If not, she would die.

Asking strangers to decide the fates of his victims might seem cruel, but Hal knew everyone is a hostage to the actions of others.

If his mother hadn’t said hello, she would have never married Rory Dickerson, who with a wink and a smile, told six-year-old Hal he needed a boy to pull roots. But the roots hadn’t been in a garden. They’d belonged to Rory’s friends, and in addition to pulling, they’d asked him to suck. They’d bent him ass up over sofas and chairs. Each time Rory introduced a new friend, his mother had scolded, “Be polite, Hal. Say hello.”

As he rounded the corner onto Cyndi’s street, Hal stopped so abruptly the hem of his overcoat flapped against his lime-green high tops. A woman—dressed in proper black, Hal noted—strolled down the steep hill. Cyndi’s fate was already approaching.

Hal tugged at the gray stocking cap that hid his blond hair and adjusted the wide round glasses that kept sliding down his nose. Two day’s whiskers and a military overcoat completed his disguise. No one would connect this street person with the fashionable young man who sold cell phone accessories from a kiosk in the mall.

Hal took two unsteady steps and then stopped. He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself. If he looked drunk or high, if he appeared too odd or threatening, the test wouldn’t be fair. And Hal played fair. No. More than fair. He righted past wrongs. He brought perfection to an imperfect world. Words had repeatedly doomed him, but being polite and saying hello should be rewarded, not punished. Hello, hi, good afternoon, even hey, would save his victims. That was as it should be. In a perfect world.

Hal started up the street, and the woman turned her head and peered at a nearby yard. She might pretend that autumn asters had caught her eye, but Hal knew she craned around so she didn’t have to notice him. He almost felt sorry for Cyndi. She would die because a stranger couldn’t face him, not even from a block away.

Unexpectedly the woman looked at Hal, not staring but letting him know she knew he was there. She broke off her gaze and checked her purse. Hal waited for the woman to open it. She would search for something: keys, a list of errands, sunglasses. Any item would do as long as it provided an excuse for keeping her eyes down. While she fumbled with whatever she retrieved, she could pretend she wasn’t rude. She was preoccupied and in her preoccupation could ignore Hal.

A car shifted gears on the steep incline. The woman glanced at it and then across the street. Would she jaywalk? Pretend to look for a particular address? Glance at her watch as if she were late? As if she’d crossed the street for any reason other than avoiding Hal.

He climbed the hill, faster now, each stride more assured than the one before. As he drew closer to the woman, he saw strands of gray in her dark hair. She was old enough to be Cyndi’s mother. The irony. One of his victims had been condemned by a neighbor, another by a cousin. Never had a mother doomed her own daughter.

The woman’s gaze slid to the sidewalk. Hal let out a long breath. Cyndi’s fate had been sealed. The woman would not meet his eye, would not mumble the faintest greeting. Cyndi would die.

The woman raised her head and smiled, not a twitch of the lips but a wide warm grin. Maybe she believed a smile was enough, Hal thought. She didn’t know she had to speak. That was the rule.

“Hi,” the woman said. “I like your shoes.”

Stunned, Hal stared down at his high tops.

A stranger liked his lime-green shoes. Said hi.

Saved Cyndi.

Brief perfection.

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Kay Jordan has been published by The Christian Science Monitor, Notre Dame Magazine, Arizona Highways, and numerous anthologies. Currently she's querying agents about The Girl and the Gumshoe Ghost, a tale of love and murder narrated by a shy ghost.

Fourth Place

Crouching Tiger

By Suzanne LaFetra

He read the note, folded it, and edged it into the gutter with his boot. There was no way a tiger was loose in Sunnyslope. He didn’t care what Curtis had written, that mother fucker had flipped since they’d come home. Poor bastard, with his freakish stump leg.

Marlow raked his dirty hand through his matted hair, then pulled the wool cap back down, low, nearly to his eyes. He blew out a long breath of steam. Damn, it would be cold tonight. He looked past the swings and basketball court to his clump of boxwoods, the fiery orange teardrops of the cottonwoods. The park was glowing, trees like embers. The Japanese maples were already blood red, and it wasn’t even November yet. They weren’t natural, not native to Southern

California . But he liked them anyway.

Marlow spun around when he heard the crunch, his heart pounding. Just a couple of kids clowning around by the jungle gym. Tiger. Bullshit.

He walked over to the drinking fountain, twisted the knob until a long arc of water curved high over the silver bowl. A scarlet leaf and a beige blob of gum clotted the basin. Marlow wiped his mouth with the back of his hand streaked with grime. Christ, he was a mess, he knew it. He curled his hands, glancing at his claw nails, black with outdoor filth.

He arched his neck backward then, way back, took in the slice of blue sky, so blue. God damn it, it was so pure and perfect, that blue. He knew he stunk. Even though he was wrapped in a sweater and his army field coat, the funk came through; almost as bad as that first month in the desert.

But in Iraq, after a week or so, your body didn’t stink anymore. It was just a meaty, human smell, and it didn’t matter. Shit, who had time to worry about a bath, anyway when everyone’s soul was rotting.

He walked back over to the sidewalk and sat down, picked up Curtis’s note again. Beware the tiger. He prowls in darkness. Poor bastard.

Marlow stood up, squashed the note deep into the pocket of his fatigues. His back was hurting. He dipped to the side, rubbing his hip. Jesus H, he used to whine to his girlfriend about his sciatica while he lay in a Tempur-fucking-pedic mattress, and a hot bath steamy and waiting. Nothing like eight months on a shitty military cot to destroy you.

He hunted the entire park, and finally found Curtis crouched behind a massive oak, tiny sharp leaves surrounding the broken man. Curtis’s hands were balled in fists, the ragged empty pant leg striped with mud.

“Hey, man,” he squatted down and reached his hand toward the man’s shoulder. “It’s okay. There aren’t any tigers, dude. You’re just freaking.”

Curtis’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You don’t know, man.” His voice was low and purring. “The horror,” he said, baring his filthy, sharp teeth. ++++

Suzanne LaFetra's work has appeared in many publications, including the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, Brevity, Literary Mama, Rosebud, and fourteen anthologies.

Honorable Mentions are
Alan Witchey for “White Rainbow”
Will Walker for “ Christ In All His Distressing Disguises”
John Gourhan for “Easy As”
Richard Weingart for “Incident on an Overpass”
Florence Kraut for “ It’s Him I Hate”
J.D. Blair for “Empties”

Three are archived here and the other three will appear in 2008.

Editor’s Note: We had a wonderful collection of strong entries. The range of ideas, experiences, and voices was amazing. When I passed the final judging on to last year’s winners, they confirmed that contests are incredibly subjective. Look at what did and did not appeal in “What Works And What Doesn’t.” Click on “Writing Advice” (hotlink) to find the article.

Honorable Mentions – 2007

Empties
By J.D. Blair

At the intersection of Birmingham and Lincoln a clump of the city's homeless milled about the corner. They were circling a kid, hounding him for a paper bag he was carrying. It was a sidewalk ballet that quickly turned ugly when the kid pulled a buck knife from his sports jacket and sliced some fingers off the hand of one old wino that was grabbing at the bag. The severed fingers hit the pavement still clutching at air. The kid nonchalantly kicked the fingers off the sidewalk and into the gutter as the stunned wino sat down in the middle of the circle and held his mutilated hand watching blood pump from the stumps of his fingers. Another old guy slipped in the bloody mess on the sidewalk and fell hard on his ass. The kid skewered the fleshy underarm of a third guy who grabbed the bag and ripped it open. A dozen empty glass bottles hit the sidewalk and shattered, becoming just one more part of the mix of old men, body parts and blood. The kid kicked at the torn bag at his feet, muttered something in Spanish, then took off down the street and disappeared into a maze of stacked pallets, boxes and debris.

The next day Roland Endorain sat slumped in a back booth at Nick's bar cradling his bandaged hand across his chest. He lost the battle over the bag of empty bottles and two fingers on his left hand were gone down to the second knuckle, a third lost the tip.

A warm breeze pushed through the door of the bar and Rollo, as he was known on the street, hugged the shadows spreading across the wall in a mottled mosaic and ducked a shaft of late afternoon sunlight kicking up dust particles over his left shoulder. He was in pain and the brandy wasn't helping.

“Rollo, you want another?” Nick leaned over the bar trying to get the old guy's attention. “Hey Rollo, Rollo, another drink?”

Rollo turned his ruddy face toward Nick but said nothing. Nick took that as a “yes” and poured another and nodded to the fat barmaid Bea to deliver it. Drinks marked the passage of time for the old man and four empties were lined up at his undamaged right hand. Bea brought the drink and stood by as Rollo took it all with a quick swallow. He turned toward Bea, his face etched in pain, and raised the injured hand, “Why Bea?”

“No reason to it Rollo, no reason.”

“I needed the empties,” Rollo picked at the bandaged hand. “I got more need of them than him.”

“It ain't a question of need, I guess,” said Bea. “I think it's whose got'em first.” Bea moved on leaving the old man to his pain.

Rollo left his life in the hands of fate years ago and lived day to day on the street. He came to the bar every day except Sunday. On Sundays, in his penance, he faced the reality of his loneliness without liquor. His Sabbath ritual was a combination of penance and self-pity, spent in a silent remembrance of his family. A mother, father, three younger brothers and a sister were all gone. The brothers, killed in the campaigns of the Spanish Revolution. His sister was born prematurely aboard ship on the family's escape to the states. She died soon after arriving, too fragile to survive the depression. His parents died of broken spirits and unfulfilled dreams. Rollo's valued possessions were six yellowing photographs of the family and a worn strand of rosary beads.

“You don't want to look into his eyes,” warned Nick, popping a stale peanut into his mouth.

“The old guy's sort of spooky,” said Bea.

“It's guilt”

“Guilt, what's he got to be guilty about?”

Nick caught another peanut, “Over being alive.”

Rollo heard their conversation but ignored them and continued to stare at the wall as he rocked back and forth counting each painful throb that shot into his mutilated hand.

As the afternoon moved into evening the Saturday night regulars began to arrive, young, boisterous types blowing off a weeks worth of frustration. They all knew Rollo but never bothered to pay him much attention. This evening things were different, word was around the old guy had a run-in with some punk over empties and was hurting.

”Hey old man, you need a bodyguard?” Shouted a guy in a hard hat.

“Rollo, how's it goin’ man?” asked another, patting the old man's shoulder as he passed the booth.

A couple of guys sat down across from Rollo, ordering up brandy for him and making small talk.

Throughout the evening nearly everyone touched the old man. Rollo, bewildered by the attention, spoke very little and as the evening wore on everyone left empty bottles on his table. When someone stopped to say hello another empty was added to the dozen or so already crowding the table.

The Saturday night crowd partied around the old man into the following day. At two-thirty in the morning on Sunday the bar had emptied. Bea was gone and only the whir of a ventilator fan cut the silence as Nick prepared to close up. In the crush of business he had forgotten about Rollo and in making a final check of the bar he noticed the old man in his booth surrounded by empties. There must have been a hundred or so...beer bottles, shot glasses and mugs. Rollo was slumped over the table face down with his bandaged hand held behind his head with the rosary dangling from his swollen thumb.

Nick tried to wake the old guy but when he couldn't he realized he had served him for the last time.

“I guess he just gave up,” Nick said to the ambulance attendants.

Rollo’s Sunday family reunion would take place as usual.
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J.D. Blair writes for radio, television and print. His current projects center on short fiction, poetry and essays. He lives in Walnut Creek, California with his wife, two cats and a dove.

White Rainbow
By Alan Witchey

         Harriett thought she had turned the light off. It shined under the door piercing the darkness in a sharp arc across the ceiling. She wouldn’t be able to sleep with it on. She lay relaxed under the brown and green comforter that she bought after the robbery. The thieves came while she was at school, taking the frayed towels in the bathroom, the sunflower painting in the kitchen, and the dirty shoes she used when working in the garden. The house was a shell. Even boxes of old pictures stacked in her father’s closet were gone. The dining room echoed with her voice when she sang in the morning, and although her father was away on business, upon his return he would contact the insurance agency, and they would get all new belongings.
         The wooden floor squeaked. Harriett could hear her heart pound. The squeak came again. She had lived in this house her entire life and knew that sound came only when her father crept down to check on her. Someone was in the hallway.
         She was sleeping on the floor, with only the brown and green comforter. Along the wall, in the shadows, Harriett could see three small piles of clothes she had bought at the Goodwill. She had never shopped there before and was surprised that the air smelled of mold and dust and the other patrons of sweat. The young brunette woman who worked the register had welcomed her like she was an old friend, “Let me know if you need help” and “I just love this blanket,” when she saw the brown and green comforter. Harriett wanted to tell her there was a difference between a blanket and a comforter, but she said a meager, “Thank you,” and handed the woman a few dollars she found in her pocket. Now, laying in the darkness, she wished she could hear that woman’s voice again.
         Harriett remembered her Father telling her that a burglar often came back to the same house after his first robbery. Once the family had replaced their valuables, he would steal them again. That must be what’s happening, she thought, but I haven’t replaced anything yet. He would realize that and leave.
         She heard voices—more than one. What would they do when they found her? Flee? Murder her? Anything but rape. She fumbled, trying to find something to use as a weapon, but there were only her clothes and the comforter. Harriett was a small woman, but she was tough and swift.
         The footsteps stopped outside her door making two long shadowed holes in the light strip. Grabbing the comforter, she slid next to the door. She would throw it over the head of the first person, shove him, and in the confusion, sprint out the front door and onto the lawn screaming for help.
         The door slid open silently. Light poured in, and her eyes grew blurry with the brightness. She couldn’t focus, but she could make out three dark figures. She stretched high, trying to cover the first shadow’s head in the comforter, but she was far shorter than him and missed. The cloth fell limp to the ground. She decided to run for the closet hoping she might hold the door shut long enough to scream and wake her neighbors. Her foot slipped on the comforter, and she fell to the floor.
         “She’s here,” said a man. “I knew she would come back to the old house.”
         “Mom, relax,” said a female voice. “She looks like she hasn’t eaten in weeks.”
         A man bent over her. She couldn’t make out the details of his face because her eyes were still adjusting to the light, but she could see he was wearing green, her favorite color. He told her she would be okay and that it was all over.
         “I have her medication,” said another male. His voice was young.
         “Not yet,” said the woman who called her Mom. “Mom, it’s Lindsey.”
            Harriett heard the voice, but she didn’t have a daughter. She wasn’t even married yet. Who were these strangers barging into her home making ridiculous claims? She would call the police and have them taken away. She tried to stand but found she didn’t have the strength. The male figure again said, “It’s okay.” Does he think I’m dying, she wondered. She let her body go limp and was surprised at how tired she was. She decided to sleep and hope they didn’t rape her.
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Alan Witchey earned his MFA from Antioch University. His stories have appeared in Small Town Shorts and Gertrude. He currently resides in Irvine, CA.

It’s Him I Hate
By Florence Kraut

      It’s him I hate, and he knows it too. His body, slim and muscular, lies beside me; he reaches out a toe and slides it up and down my calf. I shrink from him when he sleeps. He curls toward me and breathes stale air from deep within. I cannot help but turn my back. If he feels me turn away he spoons me from behind and moves his hands along my swollen belly and over my breasts, cupping them, teasing the nipples. He blows his hot breath into my ear. I clench my teeth. If his hand slides down between my legs I press my thighs together.
      Oh, he knows, but we never speak of it. I know the day he stopped being the sweet lover I tumbled with in tangled bed sheets. He had always been flirtatious, cocky. My insides collapsed, my vagina clutched if he even brushed my neck with his fingers.  I knew he tried his charms on others. Waitresses, my best friend’s sister at a back yard barbeque, my cousin Marian. But I didn’t care. I was the one he went home with at night.
      The day it changed was a Sunday. Half asleep, I lay inert beside him while he moved within me. It was the beginning of my pregnancy. He didn’t like me too active anyway. Then we dressed and went, as always, to his parents for dinner. The boisterous family gathered in his childhood dining room for roast chicken. People spilled into the living room afterwards, sprawled on the sofas, messed the lace armrests. The boys put
their feet on the tables and when told not to, got up and went for catch in the backyard. The girls went too, some to play with dolls, some out to watch their brothers. He disappeared as well.
I wasn’t feeling well. I went upstairs, to lie down. What possessed me to choose the only closed bedroom door? To push it open with stealth instead of making noise? There they were. He lay on his side, his pants down at his ankles, his sturdy prick rubbing, rubbing against the tender backside of his four year old niece. She lay, still as stone, her breath rising and falling. Blonde wisps framed her face and her eyes remained closed, but little flickers of her lids told me she was awake. Her cotton panties, I remember, were covered with pink hearts.
      He didn’t hear me, so absorbed was he in his own body. I told myself he wasn’t really hurting her, didn’t penetrate her.   I backed carefully out of the room, retreating to the bathroom where I knelt and retched into the toilet bowl. He found me there moments later and blamed my sickness on the pregnancy. And now, it’s him I hate, and he knows it even though he doesn’t know why.
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Florence Kraut lives in Rye, New York. Her stories have appeared in confession and children's magazines and are upcoming in The Rambler and Boston Literary Magazine. She is a social worker and former Executive Director of a family service agency.

First Place Winner in Writer Advice’s Flash Fiction Contest -- 2006:

It isn't something he usually does, this married man, stopping for a drink on the way home. But he sees her through the window of the Nuevo Cubano Bar and is drawn towards her. They talk, laugh, and a couple of scotches later he is at her place in the darker part of town. The poorness of her room surprises him with its metal bed, lop-sided dresser, a couple of suitcases stacked in the corner. Nothing to show the place is hers except for a snarl of cosmetics on a corner table. She makes them black coffee and they drink it silently. Then they are tangled in the bed sheets; her face caught in a sliver of moonlight. Cubano? he asks. No, Romany. Gypsy girl. The idea strikes him as quaint, romantic, as coming from a fever of impulses beyond identity or reason. He sighs and buries his face in her neck, burrows deeper as though to lose himself in the blackness of her hair. When he leaves, nothing is said; she gazes at him through sleepy eyes.

One night she tells him they are going out and takes him to her people. It is some kind of festivity: a mash of people spilling into an apartment on the sixth floor and spewing out again. Talking. Laughter. The odor of sweat, alcohol, cigars, and in his imagination, caravans, campfire smoke, sun and blood. The place is a maze of small rooms like an intricately carved box. He thinks the doorways should have beads clicking and clacking; a kitten trembles in the corner. The men glance at him, they snicker, he hears the word, gadje, outsider. The one called Basio, with thick black mustache, grips his shoulder and shoves a mug in his hand; he swallows and it is a rough kind of beer. You are what? …a banker? That is good! We can use a banker! Yes, for loans, and…well…who knows. No one whispers, and yet everything about the way they talk, and stand, and bend toward each other, suggests wild schemes and secrets. They play cards. He loses. They are cheating, even as they tell him he must go with them to the back mountains regions. Yes, they have a cabin there, and blankets, and the fireplace is good for roasting meat, and the guitars twang and sing all night, and in the morning there is wild boar to hunt. "Come with us, and I will call you 'brother.'" Basio laughs and he laughs with him. The women have banded together in the kitchen and their voices crescendo and ebb, and erupt, now and again, into high-pitched cackling. He thinks they are gossiping about the sexual prowess, or lack of it, in their men. His eyes search the room for Gisella. He remembers his wife and wishes to summon guilt, but finds he cannot. Gisella is walking toward him. Her eyes are searing his flesh.

It is six months later. Gisella is gone. There are memories of pushing open the door to her apartment to see nothing but the husk of a room, the farrago of bottles on the table top is gone. He corners the landlady, "Oh, that one. She's no more." She had taken up with an old lover who killed her in a drunken rage. He feels faint. He shivers. For weeks he walks about in a daze. When the numbness wears off and his senses return, he is, oh, so well aware that her death is his salvation. She has gone to her maker - vanished like a fugitive into the mist, and so is he lifted from her spell. His life is returned to him. His life is, once again, his own. He seizes that life: works hard at the office, tends his garden on weekends, clings to his wife, promises they will have the baby she has been wanting. He imagines himself holding the child, kissing its soft forehead, stroking its hair. It is old enough to walk and he grasps the small hand in his own. He gives the child a bath, tucks him into bed…and well, all right…just one more story before the light is out. This is the vision floating in his mind's eye as he enters the elevator, pushes the button, and takes the long slow ride to Basio's door.

Lyn Halper’s fiction and poetry has appeared in national magazines and literary journals, and in 2004 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Fiction International. She is formerly professor of Religious Studies for Rockland Community College of SUNY, and has taught creative writing in The Writing Mews in NY.
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And he saw, as he entered the lecture hall, that it was Ms. Brachhausen who stood at the blackboard, her hair smoothed into a ponytail, her feet in hiking sandals, her crisp light blue suit so professional that Jesse felt himself begin to sweat.

Ms. Brachhausen knew his mother; the two women both shopped at the organic food store, and every once in a while, Ms. B and his mother would sit in the sunroom, drinking herbal tea or blueberry juice, depending on the weather, and discussing superfoods.

Jesse had resented his mother’s health food obsession until he met Ms. Brachhausen. Surveying her lean figure, her long, long legs, the blush in her cheeks, how her eyes opened wide with excitement whenever she spoke, he finally understood the purpose of all this healthiness. Now he sometimes visited the local vegetarian restaurant and forced down a plateful of brown rice and squash, hoping he might run into her.

Before the class, he’d only had one conversation with her. She’d asked him how old he was—19—and what he wanted to study in school—computers, he’d said, and at that he detected a slight wrinkling of her nose. He wanted to ask her what she taught at the college, but he already knew, and any other question seemed too personal. And then there was the way his mother was looking at him, with an amused expression, as though she might tell a joke on him when he left the room.

Ms. B acknowledged him with a half-nod, then launched into a lecture, something about the Indians. Jesse smoothed out a clean sheet in his notebook, but all he could concentrate on was Ms. Brachhausen’s face, expressively pronouncing the words “barbaric” and “ravage.”

On his first exam, she had marked a giant red “D,” and below it the scribble “Please see me.” Jesse pondered the meaning of her words as he rode his bike home.

Ms. Brachhausen was sitting behind a desk, eating from a baggie of carrots and clicking away at a computer.

“Uh, fine.” He never really thought about how his mother was, whether she was fine or not.

“Jesse.” She was crossing and uncrossing her legs. “Tell me—how did religion play a role in the whites’ oppression of the Native Americans? That’s what I want to know.”

During the long pause that followed, Jesse could hear faint piano music. He sighed. “I guess I don’t know.”

“Hmm...” Ms. B wrenched her mouth to one side. “Are you reading the text, Jesse?”

He had attempted to read the text, but when, reclined on his bed at 3 am, he’d opened the tome, the words had looked impossibly tiny.

“I guess not,” he admitted. “I just can’t relate to all of this history—I mean, who really cares about things that happened so long ago?” His eyes were on the floor, but he could feel her scrutinizing him. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t care, but—”

Finally, he looked up at her. Her face was furrowed; she stared right into his eyes. He could see the thin vertical lines in her blue irises.

“I see a human, descended from other humans. Do you know who your great grandparents are, Jesse? Do you know who your great, great, grandparents were, where they lived, what they labored at, who they loved—or maybe, who they hated, who they killed?”

The word “killed” hung in the air between them. A piece of hair had come loose from her ponytail and was hanging over one eye.

“Because, Jesse, I’m from Germany, and do you know what my grandparents did in World War II? I’d suggest Chapter 16 of your textbook.”

Jesse swallowed. The hard voice she used wasn’t the voice that he imagined when he thought about her at night, curled up underneath his comforter, headphones blaring Radiohead, praying that his mother wouldn’t burst in.

His face was red; he could feel that. His hands, gripping his exam paper, were shaking.

Jennifer Hurley is an assistant professor of English at Ohlone College. Her short fiction has appeared in The Mississippi Review, Peeks & Valleys, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, and WriterAdvice.com. She holds a B.A. in Literature/Writing from UC San Diego and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University.
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Kevin squinted up at her from where he rested on his haunches, while he worked to loosen a bolt with his grandfather's wrench. "You've got it all wrong, Mom. Nobody wants it. If they did, they wouldn't have left it laying around the school ground for days."

"You may be right," she conceded. "Just the same, I want you to take it back. Immediately."

"You think that because it's beginning to look like something. You didn't see it when it was all wrecked out. Seat hanging off. Sissy bars loose. Please, Mom, can't I keep it?"

"Stealing?" Angry tears squeezed from the corners of large smoke-grey eyes. "But Mom, I didn't steal it. I found it!"

His lips set in a grim, determined line. Everything about her sturdy son struck her as stubborn. Even his hair. It grew in clumps that kept popping up every whichway--no matter how often it was brushed into a smooth line.

"Kevin, you'll have to make an honest effort to find out who that bike belongs to."

Renewed hope flickered in her son's eyes. "You mean if I turn this bike into lost and found and nobody claims it, I get to keep it?"

Kevin whistled confidently as he wheeled the bike off toward the school. Her heart went out to him. He truly believed the owner of the bike wouldn't claim it. But she knew better.

"Course I do. Just took a shower." He frowned. "You know, Mom, I've been thinking."

"That bathmat beside the tub. The one you took from the motel where we stayed last summer. I've been thinking over what you said the other day, Mom, and I don't think it was such a good idea." Kevin spoke hesitantly, watching her facial expression with trepidation as though he were walking a tightrope and one false step would send him tumbling.

Stunned, she stared at her son fresh and clean, his stubborn mop of hair still damp from his shower. She choked back a startled laugh.

He's only a kid. How dare he presume to judge her? His mother. Everyone collected souvenirs, didn't they? In all likelihood the motel hadn't missed the bathmat. Or if they had, they'd deducted it from their income taxes.

A searing light pierced her flabby defense. Did she consider herself an exception to the values she was trying to instill in Kevin?

"I'll bet," he continued, in a tone of kindly understanding, "you never thought taking that bathmat was stealing, did you, Mom? Just like I didn't think bringing home a wrecked-out bike was either."

necessary for her own good, she forgave the trace of triumph in her small son's voice.

"You're right," she admitted, once she had managed to swallow a painful obstruction at the base of her throat. "I should never have taken that bathmat. It wasn't my property. Guess I talked myself into it like you did that bike."

She reached down and gave him a quick hug, acutely conscious that the day would soon come when Kevin would feel too grownup to allow it. ++++

Phylis Warady’s recent short stories have been published by 1st Northwoods Anthology; Dan River Anthology; Penumbra (CSU, Stanislaus); Tickled by Thunder; 7 hills Review; Northwoods Journal, and Grandmother Earth Xll. She has also published five Traditional Regencies.

In all his 39 years, Jonas had never been this cold. He’d been caught out in bad storms before but this was a doozy. Walking back from feeding the cows, he’d lost sight of the house. It couldn’t be more than a dozen yards, but icy snow blinded him, made it impossible to see. Freezing chunks of snow clung to his pants, weighing him down, making it hard to breathe. The cold pierced him, cutting through muscle and bone. Ice pellets pricked and stung his eyes.

“God, don’t cry about it, “ his father would say. “What the hell, a little bit of snow and you start crying. Jesus. If I had a nickel for every time I got caught short in a blizzard.”

His father had been dead for 10 years now. Lucky bastard wasn’t out doing chores in the middle of January. Jonas shivered. Wind shoved him from behind, tore icy holes through his back.

What in Sam Hill was he doing here anyway? Shoulda sold this place years ago. Hell, he shoulda run away to California when he had his chance. He thought for the millionth time of a girl named Ruby, remembered her smell like fresh cinnamon and flowers. Her curly red hair tangled in his fingers when he kissed her.

“Come to California, with me,” she’d begged. “We’ll find a house with palm trees and a pool. We’ll never have to see snow again.”

He could see his house in California in perfect architectural detail. He knew where the windows were for each of the five bedrooms, could feel the warmth of the flagstones lining the pool. He saw his beautiful blond daughter who, when he presented her with a convertible on her 16th birthday, hugged him and said, “Oh, Daddy, you’re the best.”

He’d have his own convertible too. Red with custom wheels. He saw himself in sunglasses, talking on his car phone as he cruised to work.

Every night he’d crawl into warm sheets and make love to Ruby, her hair spilling over his chest, her creamy skin dotted with freckles.

Damn, it was cold. He must have made some progress now, but he still couldn’t see anything.

Maybe he was lost, wandering in circles, or even headed back towards the barn. He couldn’t see his own boots as he stumbled on.

Suddenly, miraculously Jonas began to warm. He still couldn’t see anything, but the cold was easing and a hot exhaustion worked its way through his toes and fingertips to his arms and legs then his heart and cheeks. He was alarmed. Was he having a heart attack? They’d find his body frozen after the storm. Have to wait until spring to bury him now.

He heard voices, thank god! He must be close to the house! Relief poured through him and he broke into a sweat. He’d be ok now.

“Joe, sit up. C’mon I brought you some toast and coffee. Wake up.” The woman’s voice was irritable.

Dazed, Jonas moved his hands and felt the heavy, wet sheets around him. “I’m not going to die,” he whispered.

“Die? I hardly think so. You had a little fever and it’s blasted cold in here.” He heard the woman strike a lighter and suck in on a cigarette.

“Damned landlord won’t fix the furnace. Doesn’t answer his phone. I guess it doesn’t help that we haven’t paid December’s rent yet.”

She sucked in on the cigarette again. “Listen, Joe, when you’re feeling better you gotta get out and look for another job. Ok? LA hasn’t gotten any cheaper, you know? Even this rat hole costs too much.

“By the way, your ex called. Said to tell you your son got kicked out of school and she hopes you’re happy. Not that I think it’s your fault. Whattya gonna do with kids? I mean, look at my little angels…”

The voice went on but Jonas had drifted far away. He was walking in a wheat field on a warm summer night. He saw the full, harvest moon and inhaled the dry, earth scent of a girl named Maggie. “Stay here with me,” she’d begged.

Liz Elliott lives outside of Seattle with her husband and teenage daughter. She is currently tending her garden as well as working on her first novel and a collection of short stories.

It was Ellen’s turn for bridge. The Queen of Hearts bridge group required every member to host the club at least once a year. Tomorrow was Ellen’s turn.

She had tried to weasel out of it. “Can anyone take my turn at Bridge? I need to: get ready for the wedding, go out of town, paint the dining room?”

Each excuse worked-once. Now, she was out of excuses, out of time, out on a limb.

“It really is no big deal,” Laura Anne told her. “You don’t even fix lunch. We all bring a sandwich. You serve coffee, soft drinks. Oh, and you need side salads. You know to go with the sandwiches.”

Ah, the side salads. They got you on the side salads. Of course, the house had to be spotless. You needed to use the best china and crystal. You needed to HAVEthe best china and crystal. Your decorating, or lack there of, was noted. But the side salads made or broke you.

The side salad war started small. Laura Ann began by picking up an unusual relish at the Kudzu Bakery in Georgetown. Marilyn escalated by finding a superb vegetable salad at the Tyme Out Deli on Front Street. Barbara traveled to Charleston to find a Moroccan rice dish. Where was there left to go?

Sandra moved to a new level by preparing a special curried potato salad. Kathy used her own homegrown vegetables in a marinated tomato and green pepper salad. Patty’s son, who was a chef at Frank’s, prepared something that didn’t even have a name yet. There was nowhere left to go.

Ellen stood like a stature in the aisle of the Food Lion, her hand griping the handle of the empty cart. None of the ladies ever visited Food Lion. They went to Harris Teeter or even drove the hour to Charleston. There, armed with a cooler, they harvested the very best that Papa John’s Gourmet Food Provider offered.

The display of limp vegetables and unripe fruit didn’t beckon. The frozen food case offered no hope. The refrigerated dairy section stood barren. Time was running out. Bridge day loomed ahead, yet she found nothing exotic, nothing rare.

Her own kitchen contained little that would surprise or tantalize. As a vegetarian, she prepared simple, wholesome meals. She used good bean coffee and liked fresh fruits and vegetables.

Ellen felt defeated as she drove home. Bags of snacks and goodies filled the back seat. There was plenty of ice, plenty of soft drinks, plenty of everything, but no side salads.

At home, she unloaded her spoils and sighed with resignation. She took a glass of wine out on the terrace, put her feet up and surveyed the pond behind the house. The sky was so crystal blue that it almost hurt her eyes. A white Egret stood quietly in the reeds at the water’s edge. He came every day and stood patiently waiting to spear his dinner. He harbored no thoughts of variety or elegance. His diet was truly simple: fish for breakfast, fish for lunch, fish for dinner. His main concern was to get fish.

Ellen decided that she could withdraw from the side salad competition. She would put out the things she usually ate: the firm ripe cheddar, the tangy pickles, the buttery crackers, the things she always kept in her kitchen. She lifted her glass in a silent toast of gratitude to the big white bird.
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Elaine St. Anne lives in Charlotte, NC. with her little dog, Maggie. She writes travel articles, personal histories, essays and stories. Her work has appeared in Today’s Charlotte Woman , The Charlotte Observer, and other publications.
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Straight up two o’clock and the thermometer pulsed steady at 90 for the third day in a row. August 1955 was heading for a record breaker, and the sweat trickling between my breasts and soaking my bra was testimony to that. From my shady spot on the porch I looked left and watched the logging trucks as they geared down, crawling off the mountain like giant colored caterpillars. Air brakes hissed and the stench of scorched rubber mingled with diesel fumes. Billows of black exhaust shimmered in the heat waves. To my right, I saw the front of the General Store, Slim’s Café, and the door to the Blue Room.

The loggers and mill hands knocked off work early on Saturdays. Frank and Tony’s trucks were pulling in next to the store. Rudy’s big black diesel rig was parked right in front of the Blue Room. Rudy didn’t let much interfere with his Saturday beer. Some things never changed. Howls of laughter mixed with the honky-tonk music blaring from the Juke Box. My toes tapped the beat to Hank William’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”

Rudy, Frank, and Tony were diehard Blue Room regulars. Everyone knew to walk on past the first three bar stools. I’d seen more than one foolish fellow learn that the hard way. Jimbo, the bartender, started pouring Lucky Lager’s and Hamm’s for that trio as soon as they cleared the door.

Loggers were hardworking men. Nothing wrong with them stopping off now and then to grab a cold beer before heading home. If I’d been wading knee deep in dust and falling timber in boiling temperatures, I’d have lined up for beer too. The boys deserved a chance to unwind and toss back a cool one. What I didn’t like was when they dragged Red into the Blue Room. No matter how many times I’d told Red to stay home, he’d sneak out soon as my back was turned. Rudy got a kick out of knowing Red was hanging out at the Blue Room with him instead of me.

The truth of it was, Red could sniff out a free drink without any help from Rudy, Frank, or Tony. If they weren’t around, someone else would set him up. He’d manage to brown-nose his way in no matter who was there. He was smart that way.

I fell in love with Red right off. He was friendly, chocolate brown eyes, and silky red hair. I was a sucker for red heads. Red was easy to please. He’d eat anything I set in front of him and he cleaned up pretty good. He never caused me trouble until he got a belly full of beer. Then, he’d stagger toward home and get sidetracked by any female around, especially one of those bitches that hung around Slim’s. He’d forget all about where home was, much less his loyalty to me, until the next morning. He’d slip in and give me his sheepish hangdog look. Next thing you know, he’d be trying to butter me up, nuzzling, and squeezing in real close.

I could see his gleaming red hair as he wobbled up the road. I watched him take a step or two, stop, shake his head as if to clear his beer-soaked brain, and then totter and stumble again, searching for home.

I thought I’d figured out the path to happiness when I divorced that drunkard husband, Rudy. All I wanted was a safe, faithful, and sober companion. I was sure I’d struck gold when I hooked up with Red. Someone should have warned me dogs could develop a taste for beer.

I’ve learned to put up with Red’s cheating and beer-drinking ways and so far, we’ve stuck it out for nine years. I’m not about to divorce my Irish setter. In spite of his faults, he keeps the other side of the bed toasty warm in winter and never hogs the covers. And now? I won’t hear a snarl or a growl out of him when I march him to the river for a thorough dousing to sober him up.

Linda R. Cook lives and writes from Redwood Country in California. Her work has been recognized by Byline, LSS, and ALIVE! A Magazine for Vibrant Christians. Her husband, sons, and a writer’s group have provided inspiration, encouragement, and support.
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When Rose and John arrived at Carrie's house, five out of the seven children were there. The kitchen was decorated with streamers and balloons. A birthday cake sat in the middle of the table. It said, "Happy Birthday Grandma." Two number candles--seven and five--stood up from the cake.

Carrie handed her mother an envelope containing a handmade card, signed by all the kids, and five scratch-offs. After Rose and Carrie scrounged coins out of their pocketbooks, the children set about scratching off the circles. When Janie's ticket lost, she let out a soft groan.

"Oh my Gosh, oh my Gosh, oh my Gosh!" The children and Carrie and Sam and Rose and John all screamed and laughed.

Rose collected her winnings at the Seven-Eleven the next day, then took them all out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She gave the rest of the money to Carrie for the kids.

Instead, she went to the cash register and purchased more scratch-offs. Then, she went to the ladies' room to see if she won.

The next morning, she went out to buy milk. She also bought three more scratch-offs that didn't win. That afternoon, she told John she was going out to buy magazines. She bought five more scratch-offs and, this time, added two Lotto tickets.

By the end of the week, she was playing seven different types of lottery, often using combinations of her grandchildren's birthdays. Later, she added the projected birthday of the great-grandchild on the way.

The following month, John gave her $2,143 in cash to pay their real estate taxes. On the way to the tax collector's office, she stopped at Quick Check and spent it all on lottery tickets.

That August, a distant cousin called Carrie to tell her he had seen a notice in the local upstate newspaper. Carrie's parents were facing foreclosure on their home for failure to pay taxes. Carrie insisted that her husband Sam pay her parents' debts.

Sam paid his in-laws' taxes but, after that, whenever he worked weekends or overtime, he felt resentful. Was he working his ass off to pay for his mother-in-law's lottery habit or his kids' tuition? How the hell was he supposed to put anything away for retirement?

By January, the IRS had attached part of John and Rose's social security check. Rose and John began to argue. Carrie and Sam argued, too. This year, on Rose's birthday, Sam stayed away working overtime. Carrie and the kids did not tack up streamers or balloons. They sang "Happy Birthday," then retreated to the couch to watch the television--which was hard to hear because of Rose's new personality.

Rose talked constantly--a fast, attention-commanding banter that never ceased--while John sat in the corner, stone-faced, an occasional tear drifting from his eye. During visits, Carrie became exhausted and couldn't wait for her parents to leave. But, her house was no longer peaceful, even when her parents were gone.

Carrie tried to explain it was a tradition to take co-workers out to lunch on their birthdays--that the girls had done it for her just weeks earlier.

For the first time in their 24-year marriage, Carrie pulled out a suitcase and packed.

She drove an hour to Rose and John's house. On the lawn sat a sign she had never seen before. Her throat constricted as her brain registered its meaning. In the left-hand corner was a picture of a tanned man with an open collar, smiling with teeth that were too white. Underneath him, was the name of a real estate agency.

Robyn Ringler has published articles in the Albany Times Union, Newark Star-Ledger, and Nursing Spectrum and she contributes essays to Northeast Public Radio. In 2005, her "Letter to Al Pacino" was published in Women's Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present. ++++

The woman stirred in slumber and slowly awakened to unfamiliar surroundings, breathing in the musty, dirty smell of a motel room. The pungent odor of disinfectant burned her nostrils.

The dead weight of a heavy arm was flung across her stomach. A man’s arm. She turned her aching head and looked at the young, possibly twenty-five year old stranger who lies beside her. His face, covered with a day old growth of beard, was handsome, almost innocent in repose.

She felt panic rise as she disengaged the masculine arm from her naked body and sat trembling on the edge of the bed. Reaching to the dirty carpet, she pulled on a tight pair of blue jeans that were lying in a heap then standing to slip them over her weakened legs. A pullover shirt was also nearby which she slipped over her head, the effort nearly sapped what little strength she had.

Her reluctant gaze took in the faded bedspread and drapes of a beige color and the peeling green walls, as she tried desperately to rearrange the previous night in her mind. Who was he and where had they met? Vaguely, a flash of memory reacquainted her with the night before. A tavern . . . a man holding her tightly, their bodies swaying to sensuous Country Western music.

As the woman walked unsteadily into the small, spatter-stained bathroom, her stomach churned sickly. Barely making it to the old-fashioned, chipped porcelain sink, she retched until there was nothing left in her stomach to lose. Her eyes were wet and her throat sore from the bitter bile. The odor churned her stomach again, but she ran cold water and splashed her face, forcing herself to bring her body under control.

Looking sickly at the grubby towel hanging on a peeling silver rod, she went back into the bedroom for her handbag. Inside she found a small packet of Kleenex tissue to dry her face and hands.

The contents of her bag brought back another place . . . another lifetime. She fumbled for her wallet, relieved to find money still in tact. She wasn’t always so lucky. A picture of a handsome man and two beautiful girls with long flowing blond hair smiled back at her from their plastic pocket. They had nothing to do with this . . . her gaze swept around the room . . . this filth, this ugliness. Oh, dear God, what was she doing here? But she already knew the answer.

While shoving the wallet back into her bag, something fell out and as she bent to pick it up, a pain tore viciously through her head. A card. It was an appointment card with the orthodontist for next week. These were bits and pieces of a sane world, a world completely apart from now. Her rational mind sorted out and painfully separated the two as she desperately clung to those bits of sanity like a drowning person clings to a fragile tree branch.

She pulled out a comb and lipstick and took them back into the grimy bathroom, reluctantly looking into the mirror at the thirty-five year old face that looked, at this moment, at least ten years older. After making herself as presentable as possible, she grabbed her bag, and without a backward glance, left the motel room, her eyes squinting painfully at the unaccustomed sunlight.

She walked until coming to a phone booth. With shaky hands she found a number in the phone book, dropped in a quarter and waited. Her fingers were white from gripping the receiver so tightly and her face was wet with tears.

The woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Hello,” she replied softly, “My name is Rebecca.” There was a long pause, but the person at the other end waited patiently for her to continue. “I . . ... I think I have a drinking problem.”
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Marilyn Lott has written many novels and short stories and writes poetry for John McCornack’s web pages. She lives in Chehalis, Washington with her husband, Randy. They enjoy traveling around our beautiful country. ++++