Over

Here in this leaving

triumph is fleeting

from so far away

no tongues left to 

speak in

Revisited

 

Despair rose up in me like a flash flood; it had almost reached my heart when I heard a gentle snorting noise.  The small puffy dog who smelled like cake shuffled out from behind a bush.  “Are you real?” I asked her.  “Or are you going to disappear, too?”

She cocked her head and bared crooked teeth at me, as if to say, Does it matter?

I dropped down next to her.  When I wrapped my arms around my knees and began to cry, she butted her head against my leg until I  unfurled. The setting sun was hot on my neck.  “You shouldn't be here,” I told her.  “You should go back into the woods, where it’s cool.”

She snorted and rolled onto her back. 

Tiredly I slid over to the shaded area and laid down on the damp, cold ground.  As I closed my eyes I heard some more snuffling sounds; I then felt her strange fluffy head rest against the palm of my hand. We will be safe tonight, I thought to myself. Tomorrow was anybody’s guess.  

Ask Me Why

 

I pushed the river

found a way over and under

forced the square peg through

the round hole

gave hosannas to snowdrops

breathed in the scent of new

meadows

made vows behind half-closed

doors

 

yet even as I crept into summer

felt the cool pavement under a 

welcome shadow

listened in the mountains to

the coyotes sing

these synapses kept firing 

corrupted messages across 

faulty wiring

believe in me oh I do

I am a survivor

a miracle wrapped in nightmare

another cause lost in

gratitude

Doomed

 

Memory loosens her hold as

the sun subsides and

night enters the fray

I fell toward you, I know

even as the first breath of 

loss

corrupted my lungs

but truth is an endless singing in

the ears

I cannot quiet it

I must kneel before the

moon

as need suffers another

death

Another Conversation with Alturis

 

Alturis spun the hunting knife in slow circles, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You must have been sad to leave your friends when you moved here," he said.

“Not really.”

He arched an eyebrow, an invitation to explain. Megan didn’t particularly want to, but given that he was the psychopath with a hunting knife—and her only hope was to keep him talking—she forced herself to say, “I’m not good at having friends.”

“You’re a woman. All women have friends.”

Megan laughed a little. “Not in my case. I mean, I tried to. I wanted to have friends. But something always got in the way.”

“Such as?”

“Well…when I was little, and I lived with my mom, we moved around a lot. Even if we stayed in one place for a while, people figured out pretty quickly that she was a drug addict and we were poor, so no one wanted their kids to play with me. By the time I went to live with my aunt and uncle I was just tired of trying, I guess. And it was embarrassing to explain why I didn’t live with my mother.”

“But you are an adult now. No one cares about your mother anymore.”

“It still feels like too much work. I guess I’m just not comfortable with small talk,” Megan admitted. “I’m not that great at just sitting around chatting with people. I can do it for a little while, but then I get tired, and people realize I’m weird.”

Alturis made a dismissive noise. “In my experience there is nothing weird about the inability to make small talk.”

Megan didn’t ask him what those experiences were. The last thing she wanted to do was to remind him why they were sat in the Miller’s kitchen, with Mr. and Mrs. Miller dead in the living room.

“No friend in Minneapolis, though?” Alturis pressed. “Not a single one?”

Megan allowed herself to look away from that knife, as she said, “I had one friend for a little while. Someone I met at my yoga class."

"Had?"

Megan shrugged.

Alturis peered at her, the knife suddenly still. Her heartbeat exploding again, Megan rushed out, "She was funny, yet really nice at the same time. I almost felt comfortable around her. We’d go out to lunch after class and I’d come back not hating myself like I usually did after social experiences.”

“What went wrong?”

"I don't know. It--well, Alice said I spent too much time at home alone, so she started inviting me along when she and her friends went out to see a movie or a show. At first it was okay, even nice. But then I realized one of her friends—Jody—didn’t really like me. That would have been okay, except she and Alice were as thick as thieves.”

Megan stopped short at this ill-advised metaphor. If Alturis felt insulted by it—because, after all, he was a crook as well as a murder—he didn’t show it. After a moment Megan cleared her throat and continued, “I got the sense that Jody was making fun of me, and that Alice was laughing along with her.”

“How so?”

“They were always making jokes about people. And then I saw some back and forth between them on Facebook that seemed to reference things I’d said. I’m not always—smooth. I can say sort of dumb things.”

Snorting, Alturis replied, “This is true of us all, is it not?”

“I guess. And maybe I was reading too much into everything--maybe they weren’t talking about me at all. But I don't think so. I know I can be paranoid, but I have a pretty good radar for this stuff, after all those years of people judging my mom, and then me by extension.”

“That is very sad, if true—and if not, even more sad that you doubted Alice.”

“It's impossible to say,” Megan answered. She was generally willing to accept she might be wrong, and god knew, with this she had wanted to be wrong. She’d really liked Alice. The problem was, she couldn’t quite make herself believe it. “But that's over now,” she said. “In a way I was glad to move—to get away from the not knowing. It was a relief to just be done with it.”

His hunting knife in motion again, Alturis concluded, “And now here you are.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Now here I am.”

Back Around

 

How we hope

craft facts out of

fiction

these little triumphs of

rationalization

only to sing the same 

sad cowboy song

try again, my love

stop looking for wisdom

once again you are

nature’s victim

take a deep breath

carry on

nothing more to see here

you were wrong

 

The Illusion of Safety

 

I waded through the throng of yuppies gathering for their evening cocktails at Sophie's, the upscale bar where the elite of Milwaukee congregated after hours. Supposedly the place had a ventilation system, but it was all I could do not to choke on a toxic combination of cigarette smoke and expensive perfume. My older sister Louise had worked here for years and yet I’d never gotten used to the atmosphere, in any sense of the word. Even the contemporary sculptures on the wall left me feeling vaguely nauseated if I looked at them for too long.

At the bar I wedged myself between two stools—there was never anywhere to sit—and scanned the room. Louise was nowhere to be seen. Kip the bartender gave me a friendly salute and passed me my usual Coke.

The youngish suit on the stool next to me glanced over. When his attention lingered, I ignored him, hoping he’d take the hint. Like most successful young men, he didn’t. “A little crowded,” he said, his words just audible over the din around us.

I "hmmed" politely, wishing Louise would surface. At this rate I would never get home in time for Final Jeopardy.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

“Yes,” I answered, refusing to make eye contact with him. I’d made it a policy not to encourage any of the guys who hit on me at Sophie’s. Not only were they usually too old, but they were also not even close to my type, and I was only in town for six more weeks—thank god, because I couldn’t wait to get out. When Louise had suggested I stay with her for the summer I’d been grateful, but I was already done with the whole experience. Now I just wanted to get back to my regular student life at Madison and forget this summer ever happened.

The suit rotated toward me; I in turn rotated away from him. Undeterred, he said, “I don't think I’ve seen you here before.”

“I guess you weren't looking,” I retorted, no longer even feigning politeness. I spent almost as much time at Sophie’s as the help, and I didn’t even get paid. One of these days someone was going to tell me to bus a table.

 “Actually, I’ve only been here a few times myself,” he said. “I’m new in town.”

 “You must not be very happy about that,” I quipped, despite myself. Not that Milwaukee was the absolute worst, but very few people moved here on purpose, for reasons too numerous to mention.

Before the suit could respond to this, Louise materialized at my side. “Angie!” she exclaimed, in that disapproving big sister tone of hers. “I’ve been watching the door for you for ages.”

“I had to finish something for one of the engineers. Are you ready?”

“Carla called in sick so I’m working a double shift. I tried to call you but no one answered.”

Sadly, I could not argue. The receptionists at the engineering firm where I was working as a summer temp had an unspoken agreement that at 5:00 exactly our duty to reception, if you will, ended. Our attitude was almost as bad as the civil servants who I worked with at my student help job in Madison—if one of them remained even thirty seconds after 4:30 p.m., it was a miracle.

I let out a heavy sigh. I’d slogged all the way here through the oppressive humidity and in a pair of really uncomfortable pumps for nothing.

“I’ll get you something to eat,” Louise offered, but the thought of adding yet another Sophie's hamburger to the dozens I had ingested during the past month turned my stomach. One of the benefits of my sister’s long-term employment was that I frequently got my dinner for free, but that boon had long since lost its charm.

“No, thanks,” I told her. “I'll just go home.”  I checked my watch again and scowled. I would never make Final Jeopardy now.

Louise gave me a hug and melted back in the crowd.

In a huff I sucked down the rest of my Coke and waved my thanks to Kip before I headed out into the muggy summer evening. On the sidewalk I breathed the free air and then briefly checked for traffic. This wasn’t a busy part of the city, at least not after quitting time. I stepped into the road in front of Sophie’s, mentally reviewing the bus schedule

“You’re going to die!”

Startled, I whipped my head back to the sidewalk. A man who looked vaguely familiar stood where I'd just been, a crazed expression on his face. A pain pierced my forehead as I wondered why he was crying. When I saw the bus a second too late I told myself, “No, I won’t,” and the world went black.