October 2016 | poetry
what to do when the missiles come (at last)
1962
watch the moon through crystal skies one time,
telescope your life into the week it takes
to build a crisis into chaos,
then,
crawl beneath your desk,
press your head against your knees
and take up all the burdens of the world,
the weight,
slam the door just opened
and learn about equality
as suddenly as thunder,
then,
forget about your first steps into logic
and see the one great, simple truth:
reasons can be found for doing anything
to anyone,
in any way,
at any time;
there will be no quiz,
just a final
folded shirts, penknives
thoughts, folded, put away like clothing waiting to be worn,
tried on only when we are alone
and think that no one understands;
no one asks about the silence of our wisdom,
so it sits in dark like dated shirts
below the top drawer of the dresser and its stew of odds and ends:
a penknife that we had to have, once,
its reason long forgotten;
photos growing older every day
until the faces and the fashions fade,
like cars once new, now tired as an old idea;
watches stopped at random like friends who came and went;
a ring that once said everything,
silent now like books we thought we’d read;
all these things still moving like the steeple in the rearview mirror,
once the edge of everything, the front,
now fading back as we go ever on;
these things we’ve kept to save time in a jar
like fireflies when we were kids,
things we will not send out to the curb,
these salvaged words of life;
what do they say that we cannot resist?
is this our sad rebuttal to the reasoning of time,
or just our failed argument, the ‘you can’t have this’
markers from the road we can’t take back?
or are they like the folded shirts below,
baggage from the miles spent,
or provisions for some journey yet to go?
monologue
he was talking,
but he didn’t care who saw,
sitting by the flat gray stone
as if beside an altar,
white shirt brilliant,
red face torn,
careworn once again, anew,
six years since it changed forever;
legs stretched out
parallel with hers
as they always were,
side by side,
stride by stride
so many years,
there to share where words refused to go
though he was sure she heard;
“everything we say is talking to ourselves,”
he learned when he was young,
and so it was along that hill,
muted marble markers
warming in the sun
that cut into the letters, dates
carved upon the rocks
beneath the endless sky
that smirks at him,
at all of us
as it passes in its hubris overhead
Standing in Line
Moving forward toward the front, the edge,
wherever this is heading to,
this herd, a rosary
as fingers count the beads
leading to the draggle
of the crucifix;
impatient at the back
standing on our toes to see,
we peek beyond the queue,
jealous though we do not know
the space beyond horizon, shadow.
We do not know
what waits for us in front,
though we all will get to see it
soon enough.
John Kristofco
John P. (Jack) Kristofco’s poetry and short stories have appeared in about two hundred publications, including: Slant, Folio, Rattle, Fourth River, Santa Fe Review, and Cimarron Review. He has published three collections of poetry and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
The Grim Reaper sits in a tire swing
hung from the branch
of a huge old maple
set back thirty feet from the sidewalk;
his scythe abandoned casually on the ground
near a rose bush
growing around the trunk of the tree.
Lazily swinging back and forth,
he’s humming softly to himself,
the tips of his deep purple boots
just skimming the bare patch of ground beneath the swing.
“ Nice night,”
I offer, hoping to sound neighborly.
“Indeed it is,” he replies magnanimously.
“It’s my night off,” he adds,
as if he feels an explanation is in order.
“Well, you’ve got a great night for it,”
I answer, doing all that I can to keep
from picking up my pace.
“What’s your name, by the way?” he asks,
seemingly as merely an afterthought.
Pretending not to hear,
I then do pick up the pace a wee bit.
I hear his guttural chuckle,
but don’t let myself turn around.
Instead, I throw up my right hand
In what I hope will be construed as a
“See ya, have a good one” wave.
“I’m Edward,”
I hear him shout after me plaintively,
causing a pang of guilt
to tug at my conscience.
The Grim Reaper likes to swing?
And his first name is…,
Edward?
by Roy Dorman
Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for 60 years. At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer. He has had poetry and flash fiction published recently in Burningword Literary Journal, Drunk Monkeys, The Screech Owl, Crack The Spine, Yellow Mama, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Every Day Fiction, and Lake City Lights, an online literary site at which he is now the submissions editor.
June 2004 | back-issues, poetry
THE ANGEL OF FUGUE
BY ANDRES KAHAR
______________
Fugue
Noun 1. Fugue – dissociative disorder in which a person forgets who they are and leaves home to creates a new life; during the fugue there is no memory of the former life; after recovering there is no memory of events during the dissociative state
______________
Underemployment was a nasty, yet increasingly familiar, state of being for his generation of university-educated talent. Well, that’s what Guy Burgess kept telling himself.
Guy, you see, was trained as a journalist. Guy even worked as a journalist. But, one barely remembered chain of events later, Guy ended up on the fringes, working in a call centre.
______________
DATE: Dead of winter
PLACE: DeMens Market Research call centre (Toronto)
______________
Guy Burgess really hated his job. He really hated talking to angry North Americans about credit card debt. But he didn’t know how to break the cycle of never-ending, evening call centre shifts — it was as if he’d been there forever, and always would be.
He was suffering from some weird kind of middle-range memory loss, so the events leading up to his employment at DeMens call centre were fuzzy, shadowy outlines.
One day, he considered seeking medical or psychiatric help for his self-diagnosed condition, but that idea was nixed pronto: Guy was certain that if any professional documented the details of his life, there’d be a forensic trail leading straight to his Internet porn cache. He’d seen enough Internet pop-ups warning of likely job loss should any authority figure find out he was a regular visitor to www.sloppysausage.org.
Guy Burgess hated the thought of losing his job.
Bong-Bong: “Guys ride around in BMWs and pick up women. They pay her money to do it with them. Always end with the money shot. They call themself ‘Bimmer Bangers.'”
That was Bong-Bong making conversation one shift. Bong-Bong was an amiable colleague of Guy’s at DeMens.
But whenever Bong-Bong got to talking like that at work, Guy got nervous. Guy’s eyes began to dart, and he’d sweat profusely, watching out for supervisors.
Guy: [voice slightly raised] “Look, Bong-Bong, I don’t know about norms in Manila, but sex for me is a straight-up enterprise. One man, one woman. No bells, whistles or Bimmers.”
Bong-Bong looked injured, and Guy returned to dialing numbers for the current credit card survey.
Guy must have scrolled through that survey on the computer screen at least 100 times. So, 35 minutes later, when Guy got a live respondent willing to do the survey, he was basically on auto-pilot, almost reciting the script from memory.
Only this time — possibly the 101st — was different. The script on the screen was being rewritten before his eyes. The DeMens preamble about confidentiality was being overwritten by the following sentence, in big block letters:
‘YOU ARE AN AGENT, GUY BURGESS. AWAKEN TO YOUR DESTINY.’
Guy: “Uh, Bong-Bong, look at this. Something messed-up is happening with my computer.”
But Bong-Bong’s feelings were still hurt over the ‘Bimmer Bangers’ exchange. He wiped a tear from his cheek, and he stared ahead at his own screen, frosty and silent.
Guy turned back to his computer screen: everything was back to normal: there it was: the DeMens confidentiality preamble he knew by heart, and nothing about him being an ‘agent’ or his ‘destiny.’
Some 24 hours later, Guy found himself staring at the same screen and the same script, with a phone receiver sweating against his ear. At least he assumed it was 24 hours later. He didn’t remember going home or doing anything else since his last shift. All he had to measure time by was the DeMens clock on the DeMens wall in the DeMens phone room.
A few hours into the shift, just as Guy was starting into a survey, the script on the computer screen began overwriting itself again:
‘WE CAN HELP YOU CHANGE YOUR FATE, GUY BURGESS. THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES.’
Guy: “Hey, Bong-Bong, something’s gone wrong here. My computer’s talking to me.”
Bong-Bong: [hostile, sarcastic tone] “No thank you, Neo. I see that movie too. Bong-Bong is not talking to you.”
So Guy left his cubicle to look for a shift supervisor.
Guy: “My computer’s messed up.”
Supervisor: “No, you’re messed up. How many times have we said no web surfing. Especially porn. Hit the bricks, Guy. You’re fired.”
When Guy turned back to the screen, his jaw sank. His monitor displayed a looped Reel-Video clip of a man humping a woman in the backseat of a car, while the cameraman’s member bobs in and out of the bottom of the screen, poking the overzealous woman in the cheek. Then, up came the logo: ‘BIMMER BANGERS.’
As Guy was escorted out of the phone room, he glared over his shoulder at Bong-Bong, who looked just as surprised as Guy.
Guy: “Et tu, Bong-Bong!”
The allusion may have fallen flat, but Guy’s accusation was understood. Bong-Bong shook his head in confused denial.
Guy sat on the cold steps in front of the DeMens building, oblivious to the growing snow storm. What the hell just happened in there? he asked himself, aloud.
Then he noticed a weird car thumping down the midtown street, gurgling to the curbside at DeMens HQ: it looked like one of those Russian cars Soviet spies drive in espionage movies. And this car looked Soviet alright: there were red stars, hammers and sickles spray-painted all over the rusted vehicle, and words emblazoned across the passenger’s side, in blood red: ‘FROM BAKU WITH LOVE.’
The passenger’s door opened, and out stepped an old man, about 80-years-old by Guy’s guess. He wore a gray chesterfield overcoat and a snap-brim hat. He was tall, cadaverous, almost spectral. He spoke to Guy in what sounded like a British accent, with traces of something else Guy couldn’t place.
Old man: “Hullo, Mister Burgess. Smashing to see you again.”
Guy: “Do I know you?”
Old man: “Oh, tosh! Do you know me?!”
The old man turned to the Soviet car for a moment, as if to cue a studio audience. Tobacco-shaded laughter emanated from inside the car.
Old man: “Yes, you know me. I might be your dearest and only friend. And I’m here to rescue you. Change your fate. Awaken you.”
Guy: “That was you! On the computer screen! How did you do that? Did Bong-Bong put you up to it?”
Old man: “You’ll find I can do many things for you, Mister Burgess. And, no, Bong-Bong had nothing to do with it.”
Guy: “Who are you, man?”
Old man: “Oh, I have so many names. But you can call me Peter.”
With those words, Peter gestured to the backseat of the Soviet car. And Guy, not having much to lose that evening, got up and stepped in.
Once inside, Guy was introduced to the driver, a massive bear of a man who seemed only to speak Russian. The driver really did resemble a bear in appearance, size and temperament.
Driver: “Privyet!”
Guy nodded hello, cautiously.
Peter: “This is Alesker. Alesker the Azeri. My bodyguard, among other things.”
Guy: “Oh, so you guys–?”
Guy winked and made an inappropriate clacking sound.
Alesker roared with fury.
Peter: “Heavens no, old boy! Our relationship is purely business. Moreover, we fancy birds as much as the next chap. All meat eaters here–eta ny pravda, da?!”
Alesker, still looking disgruntled, growled affirmative: “Da!”
Guy: “Where are we going?”
Peter: “To a place and time far from here, my boy!”
Alesker ignited the engine, and with that, seemed to ignite the entire sky. As the Soviet car shot off in the direction of downtown Toronto, the buildings and lights of the city were smeared with red, orange, yellow and finally white light, and the car seemed to lift off the road into midair.
Guy couldn’t see anything outside of the car — only white hot light.
Guy: “What the hell’s happening?”
Peter: “It’s called time travel, Mister Burgess. Don’t soil your trousers yet–we’re here!”
In an eye-blink, Guy found himself sitting at a dirty bar, between Peter and Alesker, drinking vodka. Guy spun his stool around to take in a room full of sinister-looking mafia types, all of them sporting shaved heads and leather jackets. Everyone seemed to be speaking Russian.
Several of the mafia types nodded obeisant greetings to Peter, the old man in the gray coat. Peter responded in fluent Russian. He then demanded something (in Russian) from the bartender — a TV transmitter.
Guy: “You took me here to watch TV?”
Peter: “Oh, you really are witless in this reality, aren’t you?”
Peter switched on the TV. The first images on the screen were of another looped Reel-Video clip from ‘Bimmer Bangers’ — picking up where the cameraman’s schlong prods its way to centre-screen, toward the woman’s moaning mouth.
The mafia types pricked to attention, and stormed the bar, clearly enthused by the old man’s program selection. But Peter switched the channel immediately.
The mafia types grumbled and groaned in protest.
Peter: “Malchiki! Zatk`nis!”
Obediently, the mafia types fell silent. They returned to drinking at their respective tables.
Guy turned back to the TV screen, and he was astonished to see his own image on the screen — albeit thinner, healthier, younger. It was as if the old man was playing a home video of Guy several years earlier, circa his undergraduate years — except these were images of Guy in a life that never happened.
Guy: “Hey, man, that’s me! Don’t remember that, though.”
Peter: “Take mental notes. Retain as much as you can. Prepare to be overwhelmed–you big girl’s shirt.”
As the old man spoke those words, Guy felt as if he were sucked into the TV screen, becoming a real-life observer of the video images.
The images appeared before Guy like real life, but not real-time — all images rushed past him like a river, everything in fast-forward. Like dreaming, on Benzedrine.
Here’s what Guy saw, or at least what he remembered:
______________
Guy is walking through what looks like an old European city, along cobblestone streets …
Then he is in a room full of shouting people in suits and ties … Guy’s taking notes …
It’s an important news conference …
Then Guy’s embracing a beautiful, young woman, who calls him by the wrong name, but that doesn’t seem to be a concern of his at the moment … they have sex in what appears to be an office, on a poorly constructed table … Guy performs badly … she rolls her eyes and gets dressed … he apologizes, offering up explanations neither of them believe …
A gunshot rings out, shattering glass … Guy runs for cover with a burly middle-aged man, a friend … they catch a glimpse of a dark figure atop a roof wearing a mask … the gunman, the shooter … an assassin …
There are alarming international headlines on the front pages of international papers … an international crisis … terrorism … bombs … sex scandals …
Guy is at the centre of the crisis, and it’s all up to him … there’s a book deal … a big book deal …
Another shot rings out …
Guy’s vision goes black, in a filthy men’s room …
______________
And, in an eye-blink, Guy is returned to the backseat of the Soviet car, which is idling outside of DeMens HQ in midtown Toronto.
Guy: “What the hell just happened?”
Peter: “I gave you a glimpse of an alternative.”
Guy: “I was a journalist. A writer. That was a pretty cool life.”
Peter: “Um, yes, and the fetching bird on the table–er–it happens to many blokes. Don’t be too hard on yourself, Mister Burgess.”
Guy: “There was another gunshot. Did I die?”
Peter: “Of that I am not certain–old boy.”
Guy: “So, when you say alternatives, are you saying I have a choice about what life I can have?”
Peter: “Let’s not jump the gun, Mister Burgess. I’m not a magician. And you are bounded by your reality, after all.”
Guy: “So what was the point of showing me all of this?”
Peter: “Oh, to make you think about things, I suppose. Tease you a little.”
Guy was no longer sure what to think about anything. At that moment, he couldn’t remember much from his real life. He couldn’t remember much from the old man’s video feed of his alternative life.
Guy only remembered the beautiful young woman. And the book deal.
Guy cleared his throat, and he stared hard at the old man.
Guy: “So, what now?”
Peter: “You go back to work. And you think about things. Think hard.”
Guy: “But I was fired from my job. I don’t have a job to go back to.”
Peter: “Oh, right. Hmm. Well, then, old boy, think of this as an opportunity.”
______________
Andres Kahar is a Toronto-based writer. He’s worked as a journalist in Europe & the ex-USSR. He’s worked in a Toronto call centre. Sometimes, his thoughts have wandered to themes of women and book deals.
© Andres Kahar 2004
October 2008 | back-issues, fiction
by Philip C. Breakenridge
Beams of hazy sunlight stroked Christopher’s skin as he took his usual place at the window. The gently rustling drapes, a melancholy shade of mauve, fingered his thighs and calves carelessly like an inattentive lover. Peering out over the newly awakened city, Christopher inhaled the fragrance peculiar to a late spring morning in Vancouver. A lush, green aroma rich with the pungency of Japanese blossoms and lilac bushes clung to the air. Christopher closed his eyes, timidly inviting the quiet of the early day to wash over his nakedness. He envisioned what was ahead and shifted uneasily in the rigid wooden chair.
Christopher’s eyes flicked open, his body tensing. The familiar silhouette darkened the window across the way.
Suddenly, Christopher’s stomach churned painfully; a bizarre combination of reticence and excitement wrestled inside him. An icy tremor resounded through his body as his quivering hand crept up to explore the firmness of his own chest. It was still difficult for him. Christopher’s right nipple hardened under his fingertip’s chilly touch. He twisted it between his thumb and forefinger, conjuring a delicious sensation of pain. The sharply shooting twinges of agony freed him, releasing him from a disobedient body. Christopher’s escaped self hovered above, a shadowy apparition gazing down on a vacant shell.
Christopher felt the stranger’s anxious presence in the distance. It was time to begin.
Fiery streams of water consumed Christopher as the last traces of the morning ritual swirled down the shower drain. Numbness washed over him as he pondered the repulsiveness of being touched by hands other than his own: hands that had molested the bodies of other lovers, hands that had sweetly mussed the fur of filthy, dumbly-devoted house pets. The oversized washcloth resting on the edge of the tub invited him to scour away these thoughts, a foul grime slick upon his skin. He gripped the washcloth tightly, scrubbing until his pale, freckled skin flushed an angry red.
Exhausted, Christopher slid into a heap on the shower floor, swallowed by a thick, dank blanket of dewy steam. Consciousness slipped away from him.
The boy raised a bruised hand to block the sun’s fierce rays. The colorful shorts set his mother had placed out for him that morning glimmered in its bright beams. A tepid summer breeze danced on the backs of his spindly legs. He squinted, scanning the expansive greenness of the backyard. His eyes refocused as the formidable man came back into view.
His father crouched uncomfortably ten feet away on the meticulously-manicured lawn. He wiped away copious beads of sweat from his crinkled brow with a meaty, calloused hand. A sigh of exasperation escaped his mouth, unresisted.
“Okay, Tiger. This time I wanna feel it burn right through my glove.”
The freckle-faced boy grasped the baseball clumsily. He struggled to wrap his delicately boned fingers around its shape.
“Here it comes, Daddy.”
Using a madly hurled overhand pitch, Christopher threw the ball with all the might a six-year-old could muster. The boy’s miniature physique lunged forward as the fervent force of his throw sent him tumbling to his knees. For an instant, he cowered on all fours waiting for the call.
“You still throw like a girl. Get up. Let’s do it again.”
Christopher stared down at the grass wishing its fierce green blades would wind their way around his body and pull him down into the cool soil. Droplets of childish determination welled up in his eyes. They had been at this for four hours and he wasn’t getting any better. He was still a sissy.
“C’mon. Get up. Only girls give up.”
His father ran his hands through a coppery-colored brush cut and smiled smugly. His boy would thank him for this someday.
“I’ll show you how it’s done. I’ll pitch it to you. You catch it, then throw it back to me.”
The little boy stood up and brushed flecks of dirt off of his grass-stained knees, feigning the bravado of a major league player. He swallowed hard and braced himself for the impact of his father’s pitch.
“Are you ready?”
Christopher tugged at the ill-fitting leather glove that engulfed his left hand and nodded. His father didn’t hold back.
The force of his throw seared into the boy’s chest, throwing him onto his back. Christopher lay on the grass, winded, gasping for any faint wisps of air he could smuggle into his lungs. A raucous cough rattled his chest, bringing up with it a ghastly mixture of blackened blood and spittle. The putrid liquid oozed from the corners of his pink mouth and dribbled onto his chin. Christopher stared up at the awesome summer sky, a deliriously beautiful palette of soft blues. Its radiance mesmerized and comforted him as he floated upwards to embrace it.
Suddenly, the blackness of his father’s stern expression fell across the heavens, darkening the magnificent sky like an ominous eclipse.
An hour passed before Christopher felt composed enough to leave his sodden refuge. Stepping out of the shower, he wrapped a plush towel around his narrow waist. With a sweep of his hand, he cleared the bathroom mirror of steam. His estranged self stared back at him as he ran his water-pruned fingers through an untamable mass of wavy hair. The sun had already turned it a shiny carrot-red. The murky blue pools of his eyes reflected back a sad vacancy.
The stranger had been coming every morning for over six months now. Christopher hated what his dark visitor made him feel. The detached connection that came with being watched was something Christopher both craved and despised. He was losing himself, a casualty of a sordid inner conflict. His carefully-constructed guise slowly peeled away, exposing a pinkish, tender sensualist flesh. Christopher craned his neck, bringing his face closer to the mirror. He poked at the finely etched lines tugging at the corners of his eyes. Maybe he was better off lost.
Christopher stared out into the faintly glowing blackness. The night air had an edge that prickled the flesh of his exposed chest. The pearlized buttons on his finely-tailored dress shirt were all undone. Its crisp cotton shape billowed on the breeze. Christopher summoned all the energy he could and directed it towards the shaded window. His eyes cautiously scanned the prodigious high-rise that looked especially foreboding after dark. The cold, grey building gazed back at him, its scattered illuminated suites forming a menacing grimace. Christopher focused on the dimly lit apartment across the way. Nothing happened.
He knew it wasn’t time yet. The shared addiction was precise and calculated. Christopher slid the frosted glass door back into place, shutting out the night.
Morning slowly crept up on Christopher. He awoke from a restless slumber and took his post earlier than usual. The familiar anxiety embracing him made the wait excruciating. Tiny beads of perspiration blanketed his body causing him to shiver slightly in the crisp morning air. A distorted collage pieced together with visions of other mornings just like this one spun in his head. The endless effort given to resisting the perversion of his own thoughts wore him down.
The masculine frame stepped out of the shadows, bringing Christopher to his senses. The stranger was already aroused. Christopher closed his eyes and laid back in the chair, balancing himself on the very edge. He gently ran his hands over the expanse of his chest. The stranger liked this – Christopher felt his approval. He lowered his hands, examining his rippled midsection with probing fingertips. He moved deliberately, pausing to feel each section of taut abdominal muscle.
Growing impatient, the stranger looked over his shoulder, into the black of his abode. Christopher gave him what he wanted. The stranger watched intently, fixed in the moment by an eerie stillness.
Christopher’s body convulsed with the force of his climax. He lay trembling, listening to the hurried pant of his own breath. He slowly peeled his eyes open. The stranger was pleased. The dark figure vanished into the obscurity of his apartment. Christopher was alone.
Christopher peeked through the sad drapes. Two dreary and vacuous weeks had passed since the stranger had stopped coming. The desertion had caused something inside of Christopher to short circuit, making the maintaining of his make-believe daily life unbearable. He was a fraud, a disconnected being, an unlovable abomination. Christopher had stopped leaving the apartment a week ago. The sour stench of his unwashed body grew thick upon the stale air inside. A dense, coarse stubble had claimed his smooth face. He ate only when the growlings of his belly demanded it; sleep came to him infrequently, in dreamless and gloomy waves.
Christopher’s robe slipped into a neat pile on the living room floor. He slid the balcony door open and stepped out into the midday rays, the sun’s brightness assailing his dulled eyes. He hoisted himself onto the wall of his balcony, his bare feet gripping the rough concrete ledge. Christopher closed his eyes and inhaled calmly. The thought of erasing a mistake was strangely soothing to him.
Christopher leaned forward, letting go of his balance. He simply let go.