Canyon Voices Best Of Issue Vol. 2

VOLUME 2 • ISSUES 11-20

Canyon Voices Best of Issue

LITERARY & ART MAGAZINE

From the Publisher Years ago, I stumbled upon a quote from artist Salvador Dali that lingers in mind. “A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.”

I found myself thinking of this quote over and over as we worked over the Canyon Voices Best of Issue 2. As we combed through past issues from the years 2015 to 2020 – 10 issue in all – we found artwork and stories that truly inspired and moved us.

There are stories that touch your heart, artwork will leave you in awe and poems that are simply magical.

Even more inspiring is the fact that most of this work comes from emerging writers, artists and the student editors who compose the magazine. The mission at Canyon Voices is indeed to create a space for these emerging, creative souls. Kudos goes to student editor Kristina Rasmussen, a talented, dedicated, and passionate senior at Arizona State University. She worked tirelessly to compile this special edition magazine. I also want to recognize the editors of Issue 20, they helped select the best of stories, artwork and poems found in this volume.

We hope you enjoy this Canyon Voices Best of Issue 2 as much as we enjoyed putting it together, and that you find a story, some artwork or a maybe just a word or phrase that inspires you.

From the Editor As Editor in Chief of Canyon Voices, Best of Issue Volume 2, it is important to me that our talented contributors, past and present, be recognized. This volume is more than just selections from issues 11 through 20 but is also a celebration of these works and the talented writers, artists, and editors that created these publications.

As an editor of Issues 20 and 21, along with the updated Best of Issue Volume 1, and now Volume 2, I want to ensure other accomplished voices present in the process are acknowledged. Some of the pieces that were selected by the editors of Issue 20*, their picks added diversity and depth to the selections showcased here.

I hope you, the reader, will consider looking back at previous issues to get a fuller understanding of what Canyon Voices is about; appreciating that we take pride in publishing the work of emerging writers and artists.

I would like to thank our publisher, Julie Amparano Garcia.

She has been a great mentor to me personally and to so many other students. Her love for her students and Canyon Voices has inspired and allowed so many of us to gain valuable real-world publishing experience while pursuing our educations.

I would like to thank Arizona State University for giving me and other students this wonderful opportunity as both students/editors as well as aspiring artists and writers.

Without further ado, please enjoy Canyon Voices Best of Issue Volume 2.

CANYON VOICES is a student-driven online literary magazine, featuring the work of emerging and established writers and artists. The magazine is supported by the students and faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts, & Cultural Studies at Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

Click here for submission guidelines.

Cover images: Nostalgia by Dylan Paradise between 7 by Hee Sook Kim CONT: ANIMATE by Erik Mint See the Artwork section for full image

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*Editors that contributed to contributing to the selections featured can be found in Issue 20 of Canyon Voices, editors’ section.

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

"Hi-bee-scus "

by Mckenna Ihde

FICTION | NINEB DANIEL

Gym-24

By Nineb Daniel

You’ll find all sorts of people from various walks of life at 24 Hour Fitness. You have the regular gym-goers looking to stay healthy. Near the treadmills we find a girl running to burn off that Caramel Frappuccino she had after breakfast. Of course, there’s also the Yoga Instructor teaching a class of forty- something’s the benefits of Anusara Yoga, or Viniyoga, or Yabba Dabba Do Yoga, or whatever crazy routine she’s got them on. And then you have Clay.

Don’t know his last name, don’t even know if that’s his first name. Clay was, in a word, a monster. He was a complete freak- beast. He was more creature than man. Clay was unnecessarily ripped with pecs that could crush a baby goat.

Some say he was in the “World’s Strongest Man” competition but was disqualified because he wasn’t really human at that point. DNA tests showed he had more in common with diesel trucks than he did with people.

Okay, that part may be a bit exaggerated, but this guy was not. He was colossal! He could barely fit through doorways; he was so big. I don’t know what the hell he wore because he was always sweating so much his white shirt would just fade away. Like magic. Sweaty, nasty magic. I had come to believe there was some invisible rain cloud drizzling over this creature at all times that no one could see.

He looked like he was melting.

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He was an absolute behemoth – a total monster of a man. He was the thing hiding under your bed at night. He’s the one watching you when you feel like you’re being watched. He was the sound in your kitchen that you thought was nothing. He’s the terror chasing you in your dreams. He’s Dracula, the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Monster, Dick Cheney, and the Boogeyman all rolled into one.

And for all that, for the intimidating appearance, for the crazy weights he was lifting, for all the Metallica, and all the sweat, Clay was a decent guy that changed my life for the better.

I had been going to the gym for a little over a year. The progress I had been making at first was phenomenal; I had gained fifteen lbs. of muscle in just a couple of months. Not a goddamn thing felt better than seeing my strength skyrocket like that. Bench press, squat press, deadlifts, all of it was going up and up and up – until poof! My muscular gains stopped. I had hit the ceiling, reached a plateau, exhausted my limits, and everything went kaput.

For months, none of my lifts improved. I began curling the same 30lbs dumbbells day after a stagnant day. These days turned into weeks which turned into long, long months. Nothing was increasing and I began to wither.

I tried everything to cure my ailment. Perhaps switching my all-Chipotle diet to something a bit more nutritional would fix things. That only

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made things worse. Now I was at a standstill in strength and missing out on the sweet ambrosia that is Chipotle. I tried other diets, began taking different supplements - creatine, casein, optivitamins, fish oil, chicken legs, moose bladder, beaver tranqs, shrunken heads – and still nothing. All forms of herbal supplementation, dietary changes, and gypsy muscle magic had no effect on me.

I consulted my doctor about my issue. He conducted a thorough physical and took several x-ray shots of my body, only to tell me, “Looks like you’re in tip-top shape. I’m really proud of you. You’re much healthier than the last time I saw you. Your blood work shows that there is nothing wrong with your body. Congratulations.”

He might as well have said I was terminal.

Maybe I’m overreacting a bit, but this was something that was really important to me. I had always been the skinny kid growing up. It was a huge sense of satisfaction seeing myself progress, seeing my muscles grow, and seeing my reflection in the mirror change day by day. I felt like all my hard work and dedication at the gym was paying off. Going to the gym was always fun because I knew I was getting better, faster, and stronger. Now it just felt like a chore.

I trudged my way back into 24 Hour Fitness to be greeted by James, the guy working at the front desk. “Sup, bro,” he said without looking up. He was busy sitting in his chair doing concentration curls with a dumbbell. “Just need ya to sign in, bro.”

Let me tell you about this guy James. James is not just some random bro, he is the bro. He is the pinnacle of bro dom. He is Broseidon, king of the Brocean. The bro who descended from the heavenly bro in the sky to bro for our sins. When

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he wasn’t doing curls at the front desk, he’d be working out on the gym floor with everyone else.

Every now again we’d work out together.

“Sup, bro!” he’d say to me as loud as he could, “I’m hitting chest today, bro. Planning on benching 315 today,” he was basically shouting at this point for everyone to hear, “Maybe I’ll go higher, I dunno. Wanna hit chest with me today, bro?”

“Sorry James,” I’d reply, “I hit chest yesterday.

I’m going to work out my legs today.”

“Ha! Legs?” he’d snort loudly, “Bro, you don’t need to work out legs. You do that enough by walking. Come on, hit chest with me today, bro.

Bro, hit chest with me. Bro, hit chest. Bro. Bro. Bro.” James would always wear sweatpants to the gym, and for good reasons. He had complete noodles for legs, or at least that’s what I was lead to believe. In the entire time I’ve been at 24 Hours Fitness, I had never seen him complete one leg workout, not one. And he’d always have an excuse.

“Sorry bro, I can’t work out the legs today.

They’re feeling kinda cramped, ya know bro?

Don’t wanna risk it.”

“Nah, sorry bro, not this week. My right leg fell asleep while I was benching.”

“Not today, bro. Robin Williams killed himself.

Too sad to work out legs, bro.”

“What, you want me to do legs today? I can’t bro, it’s the Harvest Moon. Yeah, no, it’s bad juju to hit the legs on the Harvest Moon, everyone knows that bro. Look it up.”

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He’d get carried away sometimes, but he was a decent enough guy. He was always there when I needed a spot and he’d put away the weights when he was finished. What more could you ask for? I signed in at the front desk and left James to his curling.

I did my warm-up sets and began my workouts with 135lbs. The bench was soaked in Clay’s dank sweat. The smell of gorgonzola cheese filled my nostrils as I laid down to start the exercise.

That’s the first thing I noticed about Clay when I started working out with the guy; he always smelled like gorgonzola cheese. Always. No exceptions. He would later tell me he doesn’t eat cheese on account of his diet. Makes no sense.

I made my way towards the benches and saw that all but one were taken. I hurried towards it before anyone could claim the bench for their own when I saw the big, hulking figure stomp towards it. I could see he was already drenched in sweat and his headphones were blasting Master of Puppets so loud that I could hear James Hetfield shouting “Master, Master.” Clay had laid claim to the remaining bench before I could get to it.

I finish my first set no problem. The big guy was ready to spot my second set, still blasting Metallica, still smelling like gorgonzola cheese, and still looking like the final boss of Mortal Kombat. Alright, time to impress this schmuck.

Let’s go big. 165 lbs, oh yeah! I laid back on the swamp-bench and gripped the bar.

On any other day, I probably would have waited for this beast-man to finish his workout. On any other day, I probably would have sat back and waited my turn to use the bench. On any other day, I probably would have jumped on a treadmill to kill time before I could get the bench.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Clay said. What was that? Was that his voice? It sounded like he was gargling nails when he spoke. No way that was his actual, real-life voice. People don’t sound like that, they just don’t. He had one earbud out as he repositioned my hands to grip the bar in a wider position.

But this wasn’t any other day. I wasn’t making any progress, my doctor had basically told me I was dying, and now this asshole thinks he can just lie down on my bench and lift my weights.

Not today! Time to kick this Brock Lesnar wannabe out of my gym.

“You’ve got long arms. Gotta broaden your grip,” he put one earbud back in as the refrain of Through the Never played.

“E-excuse me, sir,” I said in my manly, tough-guy voice, ‘do you think that, um, maybe I can work in with you?” Listen, I didn’t want to be rude or nothing, but sometimes you’ve got to be assertive and be a man! “I-if not, then I can just wait.”

He didn’t say anything. He had removed one earbud to hear me but didn’t respond verbally.

He just sort of shifted his twenty-pound head one way to let me know “Sure, kid, jump in.”

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Okay, so that happened. He helped me lift the bar off the rack as I began my set. I didn’t notice much of a difference at first, but after a few more reps I noticed my stamina was holding up better than usual. The wider grip was working. As I was going for my sixth rep, Clay snatched the bar with one meaty hand and pushed it back on the rack.

“W-what was that for?” I asked.

“Go heavier. Pinch your shoulders back when you do it. Arch your spine,” he was telling me

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this as he raised the weight to 185 lbs. “Lift your heels with your foot on the ground.” He finished placing the weight on and looked me directly in the eyes, “remember to pinch your shoulders back.”

185 lbs was nearing my max. There was no way I could do more than four repetitions. I got into the awkward position Clay had described. Arched spine, feet planted, heels up, wider grip, shoulders pinched. What the hell does “shoulders pinched” mean anyways? Well, he explained it to me. I had my shoulders blades pushing inwards so that they could get as near to each other as possible. Really, this was the most uncomfortable position imaginable. Now just place 185 lbs. on top of your chest and boom!

You’ve got a party.

Clay once again helped me get the bar off the rack. One rep. Two reps. Three reps. Four reps.

Five reps. Siiiiiix reeeppppsss!!

Seve“Get it, agh! Get it! I’m dying,” I choked out as the bar came toppling on top of my sternum.

Clay picked it up with one giant arm and reracked it.

“Good,” Clay said, as he continued to smell like moldy cheese. Three more sets of that and I was done. I had never lifted weights like that before, never at that volume and never at that intensity.

I continued working with the Dwayne Johnson lookalike for the rest of the day. He showed me different methods of working out, unique positions, and forms that I never tried before. I woke up the next day with a chest that felt like lead. Everything hurt. But the pain felt good.

Soreness after a workout usually meant I did something right. And boy was I sore.

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The next day was leg day. Or as I liked to call it, the best day. The day where I get to work out my quads and my calves, my hamstrings, and my gluteus maximum. I walked into the gym and was greeted by James. “Sup bro, wanna hit back with me today?’

“Sorry, James, its leg day. Do you wanna work out with me?”

“And hit legs bro? Sorry bro, I just invested in some precarious stock, bro. Can’t hit legs when I’m making risky investments in a hostile marketplace, bro. Next time though!”

I proceeded towards the only squat rack in the gym, and who do I find doing seven-millionpound Squats in my rack? The Incredible Hulk.

“Clay,” I said, “do you think I can jump in and work out with you?”

For Whom the Bell Tolls was playing on his phone as he nodded his thirty-two-pound head at me. He helped me take off all the weight on the bar as I began my warmup set. I began my next set with 205 lbs. and managed a few reps before Clay pushed the bar into the rack. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You’re not going low enough.” He pulled me out of the way and got under the bar. Lifting the bar on his shoulders, he paced back a few steps and lowered his body to a perfect squat. “Quads need to be parallel to the ground. Ass up, chest out, back curved,” he said as he re-racked the bar. A part of me died when I heard Clay tell me to put my “ass up.” Even with context, that was the worst thing I’d ever heard.

I did as he told me and, just like the day before, the weight felt lighter. My form was better and as a result, the exercise was easier. I increased the weight to a number I had never reached before

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and performed the exercise without a hitch. The next day, Clay and I gravitated towards each other to workout out backs. Yet again, he was giving me advice and tips on how to lift heavier.

“Finish this last set on your own. I gotta go pick up the wife.”

“The wife’s been nagging me to pick up a new rug. Know any places?”

This partnership continued on for weeks and months even. We’d meet up at the gym at around the same time, barely say a word to each other, and put in our work. My strength was slowly beginning to increase again. The doctor was wrong, I was going to live! I could see my reflection in the mirror getting bigger and bigger, stronger, and stronger. All the little things, all the techniques Clay was showing me, all of it was working out for my benefit. It got to a point where I didn’t mind his horrible sweat and his cheesy smell.

“You’re getting huge, bro,” James pointed out to me while he was curling in the squat rack, “Working out with the Juggernaut is getting you jacked bro.”

James was right, I was growing into a miniature Clay myself. Along with the tips the big guy was giving me, my diet had been taken to unheard of levels. Simple carbs did not enter the holy temple that was my body. My diet consisted of chicken, sweet potatoes, chicken, brown rice, chicken, dirt, chicken, and more chicken. The food wasn’t all bad at first, but after several months everything started tasting like rubber. I also had to practice complete sobriety so no more alcohol on the weekends. I was sacrificing a lot to achieve the body of my dreams, and at the time I thought it was well worth the effort.

Months passed and the mystery that was Clay began to unravel. I began piecing together who he really was with the snippets of information he’d let slip out.

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“The Cards win? Couldn’t watch the game, the old lady had company over.”

“Ass up on squats!

“She’s been getting to me man. I don’t know what to do. She says I don’t spend enough time with her – too much time on bodybuilding.

Things have never been this bad between us.”

I wanted to stop him right there and tell him I did not care about his marriage. I didn’t say anything in fear that he would devour my soul, but I really wanted to. Clay had always appeared to me as a demigod who looked on at human affairs with an apathetic eye. To hear about his marriage problems muddled his image. He was becoming a sort of hero to me. I didn’t want to know about my hero’s mortality. Who wants to hear about Clark Kent when you can have Superman?

The gym was an outlet for the guy, and I was the closest thing he had to a friend. I’d repress that thought to the back of my mind as I had other things to focus on. For one, Clay and I had agreed on a Deadlift max I had to reach by the end of the year. 400 lbs. was my goal and he was going to help me reach that weight.

My fitness life became clock-work. Get up at 7 am. Eat one and a half chickens whole. Run for an hour. Come back. Eat dirt mixed in with protein powder and more chicken. Watch Terminator 2 to memorize all of Arnold’s secret techniques. Consume more chicken. Meet up with Clay at the gym. Lift an unnecessary amount of weights. Go home. Shower while

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eating chicken and dirt. Go to bed. Dream about doing more curls and eating more chicken for maximum efficiency. Repeat.

The smell of gorgonzola cheese stung my nose as I dropped the bar to the ground. I saw Clay making his way towards me, the Earth shaking with each step.

The lifestyle was hell, but I was looking great, so I kept on putting in the work.

“I did it, I put up 400!”

But everything changed on the day my Deadlift max was due. I was near the rack, waiting for Clay to show up. He had never been late before, but there’s a first time for everything. I thought I’d finish my warmup sets while I waited for him.

James joined me as we began our routine.

Clay nodded his forty-pound head in approval.

“Good,” he said. Something was off about the guy. For one, he didn’t have Metallica on. His demeanor was different too. He was sweating sure, but something around his eyes seemed strange to me.

“Bro, where is he bro?” James asked.

I dropped the bar and let the big guy begin his sets. He warmed up, then began at 400 lbs. Then 500. 550. 650. 750. The entire gym gathered to watch him lift at this point.

I shrugged my shoulders, “Maybe he’s with his wife.”

The workout continued. My warm-up sets were over and Clay still hadn’t shown up. Oh well, I guess I’d do the workout without the smell of gorgonzola cheese burning my nostrils.

“Bro, Clay snapped,” James said.

We began increasing the weights. 250 lbs. Done.

300 lbs. Done. 350 lbs. Done.

“Bro, I think you can get 400 lbs. easy,” James said as we placed the weights on. This was it. My big moment. Months’ worth of work had led up to this. Me vs. gravity. The dream match! James had his arms crossed as he watched me approach the bar. “You got this, bro. You got this.”

I measured myself up in the mirror across from me. I was bigger than I had ever been. Squatting down, I grabbed the bar shoulder-width apart, ass up, chest out, shoulders pinched, and began to ascend. Slowly but surely the bar rose as I did.

Gravity could do nothing as I tore it apart with my massive muscles. Isaac Newton be damned; I had lifted 400 lbs. off the ground!

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As he increased the weight to a half-ton, I finally recognized what was wrong. To the regular gym goer, it looked like Clay was just sweating as usual. But there, in his eyes, I could see them.

Tears. This superhuman was crying in front of everyone, but no one could tell. They only cheered him on as he lifted 800 lbs. He then increased it to 850 lbs.

“This is nuts bro,” James said. He was completely enthralled by what was transpiring in front of us, as was everyone else. Dozens of people gathered to watch Clay. He was huffing and puffing as he approached the bar, blasting Rammstein out of his headphones. “Du hast mich. Du hast mich.”

He squatted down, grasped the bar, and with a strength and a passion I had never witnessed before, he began to lift. Slowly, very slowly, the bar began to rise and relinquish itself to the mythical power of the beast-man. Everyone was cheering and shouting encouragement, but Clay’s

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voice boomed louder than all. He roared as he stood perpendicular to the Earth, bar in hand, screaming in agony and, to the surprise of all, weeping. Clay was weeping louder and louder.

Everyone grew quiet. He let the bar slam to the ground as he made his way out of the gym.

James and I chased him down, “Clay, what happened?” I asked.

“I messed up,” he moaned, “I said things I shouldn’t have said. I did stuff I shouldn’t have done. Too much time here. She’s gone. She took everything, the kids, the car, everything. She’s gone, man. She’s gone.”

We were speechless as Clay left through the doors and out of our lives forever. The cape I had envisioned he wore was torn to shreds. “Bro,” James began, “Bro, that was rough bro. Poor guy.” Clay had sacrificed a lot to get to where he was, and I wondered if it was all worth the effort.

“James,” I said.

“Yeah, bro?”

“I think I’m gonna give up chicken for a while.

Wanna get McDonalds?”

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Nineb Daniel, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 11

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FICTION | EUNICE KIM

The Red Shawl

By Eunice Kim

It would be hard to find a woman like Katenka Nikolaievna, a woman who lived for the sake of her objects. On her bedside dresser, there was a candlestick, a bodkin for mending her clothes, and a tin hairbrush. These were nearly all she owned; other than the clothes she wore. If my memory serves me right, this is how the objects were placed: the candlestick was always on the front- left corner, about two centimeters inward, diagonally; the tin hairbrush was laid horizontally near the back of the dresser, about two centimeters away from the edge; and the bodkin, which was used the least, was near the right edge, also about two centimeters away; how she was able to measure the centimeters is a question that is unnecessary for the telling of this story. What’s more, to know is that Katenka Nikolaievna found herself unable to go to sleep unless all three objects were placed in this exact formation. It is also necessary to mention that when she walked, she counted her footsteps out loud parallel to one another when walking.

Inside this dresser, among her clothes, she had a box that she kept locked up and which had a little hole in the lid through which money could be inserted. Katenka had been in the habit of putting away a little from every rouble she spent; as she had been saving up for a long time, there had accumulated in the course of several years a sum of forty roubles. But now there were none.

I do not know precisely what date this happened, but at any event, Katenka had one day seen a most beautiful red shawl displayed behind

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Petrovich the Tailor’s shop window. It was the most luridly marvelous thing she had ever seen; you could almost say that it was more crimson than red, with tassels hanging from its edges and a border of starkly outlined roses of pink and blue. At first, she had no desire to buy it, for that would be a sin, like stealing the Firebird from its roost. But as she walked home, the pinks and blues indelibly stitched into her mind, Katenka remembered the box with its forty roubles.

Indeed, the shawl could be hers, and it need not ever despair of neglect, for Katenka planned to gaze at it and wear it at every possible moment.

It would be hers, just as much as the candlestick, the brush, and the bodkin were hers.

So Katenka Nikolaievna, in a moment of supreme happiness, ran home, took the money out of the box, ran back to Petrovich the Tailor’s, and purchased the red shawl, which cost exactly what she had – forty roubles. Yes, she had to empty her box, which would no longer jangle with coins, but weren’t coins meant to be used?

Here, the reader should be able to infer that Katenka Nikolaievna did not love her money the way she loved her other objects. For money, unlike the candlestick, the brush, and the bodkin, did not truly belong to her, but to the world outside her, which she did not own either.

She was to pick up the shawl from Petrovich the Tailor, on the night of 23rd March, as soon as her work was done for the day, for she served as a maid at a Very Important Person’s house.

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That night, as Katenka left Petrovich with the red shawl around her shoulders, she was approached

by Ivan Fyodorovich. Ivan, a man who had shown every evidence of love for her in the past, asked her to marry him. They were standing where Nevsky Avenue was intersected by an immense square with houses dimly visible on the other side. It was still light in the street when Katenka said to him in answer to his proposal, “But I could never love you if you were to be my husband! I could never love you because you are a man!”

As she spoke, she trembled, and as she trembled, the tassels on the edges of the red shawl trembled too.

Ivan Fyodorovich, a most admirable man, in my opinion, was presented with the choice of three different reactions, namely, questioning her, flying into a rage that can only spring forth as a response to the most hideous act of betrayal, or running away. If my memory serves me right, he would choose all of these options. He said, “Do you realize, Katenka Nikolaievna, whom you are treating so cruelly? Do you understand who is standing before you? Do you understand it? Do you understand it, I ask you?”

Katenka looked down at the roses on her new red shawl, and she noticed how they wrinkled, delicately, whenever she moved her shoulders.

“Am I worthless to you than that shawl?” Ivan screamed. “I will see to it that your shawl means nothing to you. Nothing!” Here he stamped his foot, trembled all over, and tramped away.

Nevertheless, Katenka, with the new red shawl draped over her shoulders, continued to walk home as if on air, now that the red shawl was hers at last. I might even be so bold as to say that CANYON VOICES

as soon as Ivan Fyodorovich mentioned the shawl, he had ceased to exist for her. And as she walked, the sound of her black shoes clicking and clacking against the cobblestones in perfect formation was quite lovely to her. You might say that she walked like the most docile and welltrained horse in the world. A long way away she could see the glimmer of a light coming from a sentry-box, which seemed to her to be standing at the edge of the world. Katenka’s cheerfulness faded as she exited the square; you could tell because the tips of her feet were beginning to slant outward as she walked. She exited not without a kind of involuntary sensation of dread, as though feeling in her bones that something untoward was going to happen. And I am sorry to say that her dread was not unfounded.

“Much better not to look,” she thought to herself, and shutting her eyes tight, she walked on, opening them only to see a couple of street children, both boys, and girls, swarthy children.

“Look, there is my shawl!” a girl not much younger than herself said, grabbing it from Katenka, who chased them back across the square, but as soon as the children left the square and were swallowed up by the gloom of the alleyways, Katenka could not make out where any of the children were among all the unlit houses. Having run-up to the police constable, Katenka started shouting at him in breathless gasps and incoherent words; and he advised Katenka, instead of standing there and abusing him for nothing, to go and get lost.

Katenka came running home in a state of utter confusion. In her sadness, she didn’t count her footsteps and staggered into her quarters, causing Arina Semyonovna, the maid who shared Katenka’s room, to gasp at this uncharacteristic behavior. Katenka threw herself onto the bed, knocking over the candlestick, which was

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thankfully unlit but caused the tin hairbrush and bodkin to turn askew.

The next day, when Katenka trudged upstairs to assist the Very Important Person’s wife in her morning toilette, what else did Katenka see but the Red Shawl, its flowers and tassels still intact, handing the mistress her manteau de lit! And as soon as Katenka reached out her arms to embrace her returned possession, it ran from her with a swiftness that only Shawls can have. In dismay, Katenka stood and waited for the Red Shawl to continue with the morning toilette, so as not to make a scene. When the Red Shawl began to assist the Very Important Person’s wife with her ablutions, it said to the lady, “Katenka Nikolaievna must marry you, for she could never marry a man!” to which the Very Important Person’s wife responded, “Oh, how frightful!”

Katenka had no choice but to run away in shame.

Needless to say, she did not count her footsteps, nor were her feet parallel.

The next morning, after Katenka woke up to polish the boots and shoes of everyone in the household, what did she see but the Red Shawl, cleaning the fireplace and speaking to the housekeeper! This may not be important enough to note, but I might even dare say that the Shawl did a much better job of cleaning the fireplace than Katenka ever did, back when she was a scullery maid. Not a single speck of ash fell upon its pink and blue roses and green leaves.

“Katenka Nikolaievna must marry you, for she could never marry a man!” the Red Shawl said to the housekeeper, to which the housekeeper responded, “Oh, how dreadful!” Katenka ran away in shame, once more forgetting to count her footsteps.

To Katenka’s relief, the Red Shawl was not seen the next morning, but that same evening in her

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room, after she had lit the bedside candle and began to comb her hair, the Red Shawl entered the room with a broom, the broom that Katenka always placed between the wall and the dresser, and began to sweep the floor. While it swept, it began to speak to Arina Semyonovna, who was undressing for bed.

“Katenka Nikolaievna must marry you, for she could never marry a man!”

“How odious!” Arina Semyonovna cried.

This time, Katenka did not run away with shame, but caught the Shawl by one of its corners and pleaded with it.

“I have loved you, why must you be so cruel?”

“Am I worth more to you than any man? Do you understand who is standing before you? I will see to it that you feel nothing for me. Nothing!”

Katenka, whose humiliation could brook no longer, grasped the bodkin on her dresser and ran it through the Red Shawl, piercing it, at which the Red Shawl gave a piercing cry and ran from the house, after which Katenka promptly put the bodkin back into its case. As for the Red Shawl, it was never seen again, though rumor spread a few days later that it was taking a walk in the Tavrichesky Gardens and that it had been there for a long time. The rumor was only partially true because the Red Shawl never did step foot in the Gardens; rather, it much preferred to frequent the zoo in Alexandrovsky Park, whether or not the reader finds this detail useful. As for Katenka Nikolaievna, she was discharged for unseemly conduct towards her employers and fellow employees, and soon found a job as a nurse for the district police commissioner. She no longer saved money for needless fancies and ceased counting her

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footsteps, measuring the distance between her personal articles, and so forth. And as before, she did not care to marry.

So that is the sort of thing that happened in St. Petersburg. Only now, on thinking it all over, we can see that there is a great deal that is improbable in it. But then where do you not find all sorts of absurdities? Say what you like, but such things do happen – not often, but they do happen.

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For the original publication and information on author Eunice Kim, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 11

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

FICTION | KAT LEWIS

Jello Shots & Shopping Carts

By Kat Lewis

There were two good things about vomiting. The first was that no one liked to bother anyone spewing a volcano of black beans and Pico de Gallo in a Chipotle restroom. People would inevitably knock on the door and throw out a cursory “Are you alright?” but once you replied with a casual but raspy, “Right as rain, “ they’d all gladly turn back the way they all came.

The second good thing about vomiting was that you got to taste that Chipotle burrito twice. Jolene Tope was face down in the porcelain with the taste of vodka and a half-digested burrito fermenting on her tongue. Cheek squished against the toilet bowl’s cool rim, she groaned.

Everything hurt. Her stomach burned with a cocktail of Tabasco sauce and booze and that was the least of her worries.

Pushing off the toilet, Jo clambered to her feet. She stumbled but caught her balance with two drunk stomps. As she pushed the haze of red hair out of her face, her palm grazed the skin by her temple, causing even more pain. She looked in the mirror. Black grew in rings around her eye. It puffed where her eyelids met, somehow leaving her green eye both permanently opened and shut.

She leaned on the sink to get a closer look at the plum-colored splotch. A drunk giggle slipped out of her chapped lips as

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her fingers poked at the bruise. “Shit,” she swore, her eyes watering with a wince.

Three sharp knocks rapped the door and Jo jumped. “Hey,” a voice cooed from the other side. Jo wasn’t sure how, but it sounded more genuine than its predecessors. “You alright in there?”

“Yeah.” The word burned on its way up.

Joe cleared the puke out of her throat and added, “Just having some seconds,” she joked but her southern accent clanged with stress.

“You, uh, want me to bring you some water or something? Might pair well with that acidy after taste.”

Jo smirked but shook her head. “Nah, I got a sink full of water. I’m good.”

The door shifted in its frame as the person on the other side leaned against it.

“I highly recommend you don’t drink that. The water in this city is about as good for you as crystal meth.”

“Well, I highly recommend you don’t tell me what to do.” Despite her words, she heeded the advice. As much as she wanted to rinse the taste of college and regret out of her mouth, she kept her hands off the faucet.

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“You know, they’re about to close. Can I at least make sure you get in a cab okay?”

Jo reached for her makeshift purse, a Star Wars lunchbox that was slumped against the toilet. She slipped her cell phone, an ancient flip phone, out of the side pocket and checked the time. She squinted at the light as the time, 10:41, glared at her from the screen. “I suppose that—” She heaved. Jo held onto the sink for support, trying her best to keep it all down but quickly lost the fight. The vomit bubbled up her throat and burst from her mouth with determination. Only about half of it made it into the toilet. The rest of the slop dribbled down the side of the bowl and splatted against the cement floor. Jo wiped the spittle from her mouth with the back of her hand, unknowingly smearing some onto her cheek.

Lunchbox in hand, Jo dragged her feet to the door and opened it. On the other side stood a man too old to be a college peer but too young to have real adult commitments. He was wearing a neon yellow vest that didn’t compliment his robust beer belly. He smiled as the door opened but the corners of his mouth dipped when he saw Jo’s black eye. His brow creased even more at the vomit on the floor. “Bad night?”

Jo shook her head. “Not as bad as the guy that has to clean that up.” She gently but non-negotiably pushed the man aside so she could pass. She staggered down the hall, threatening to take a tumble.

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The man held out his arms, ready to catch her but she steadied herself on her own. Jo plodded into the eating area and headed towards the soda fountain with sloppy purpose. She cupped her hand under the waterspout and poured the water before sipping from her palm.

The man shook his head and got a water cup from the manager. “Here,” he said, filling the cup up of her.

Jo took the cup and chugged most of the water in a single gulp. “Thanks.” He opened his mouth to say something else but only stared at her face. “What?” The word came out more like a demand than a question.

“You got a little,” he said, politely gesturing to his own cheek.

“A little what?”

“You missed a spot.” Jo wiped her cheek, pulling back a glob of puke on her hand.

She looked back at him to see if she had rubbed it all off. “You got it.” The man offered another smile and Jo sipped from her cup, returning his gaze with suspicion and scrutinizing interest.

Behind them, the manager closed the cash drawer and said, “Sorry but I gotta kick you guys out.” His gaze turned to Jo. “You okay to get where you gotta be?”

Jo nodded, but it was the man that answered for her, “I’ll make sure she gets in a cab.”

The manager’s eyes shifted between the two. “Do you know him?

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“Nope.” Jo’s lips popped on the “p.” The manager started to protest but Jo stopped him. “I’ll be fine. I got a shit ton of mace in here.” She patted the lunchbox. “And a killer pussy.” Shock settled onto the faces of both men. They jerked away from Jo as if her words had slapped them. Jo unclipped her carabiner keychain from her belt loop.

She held up her keys and they chinked and twisted. Among the keys was a keychain that was shaped like a cat’s face with its ears coming to two sharp points.

She slipped her fingers through the eyeholes and held up a weaponized fist.

“Y'all are some kind of perverts,” she said with a giggle before wobbling towards the door. The man followed closely behind and opened it for her.

Outside, he took his smartphone out of his pocket and looked up a cab company.

Jo leaned over and squinted at his screen.

“Well, that’s kind of ya, but totally unnecessary. I live just a few blocks away.

I’mma walk.” Jo gave him a two-finger salute and held up the cup of water. “Nice meetin’ ya and thanks for the agua.” She started to walk away but the toe of her shoe caught on an uneven slab of sidewalk. She hit the ground, scuffing a knee and the heels of her palms on the concrete. “Ah, shit.”

The man helped her to her feet, and she leaned against him, glancing down at her skinned knee. “Yeah, you’re not walking home.”

“Well, I ain’t paying for a cab. And before you get all good guy . . .” Jo trailed off realizing she didn’t know his name.

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“Good guy whatever-your-name is on me, I ain’t taking a nickel from you.”

The man chuckled. “So, my name is Bryan, thanks for asking,” he said, steadying Jo for her to stand on her own.

“And because I’m ‘Good Guy Bryan’,” he paused with air quotes, “I’m not letting you. . .” he hesitated, and she filled in the blank with her own name.

“Jo.” “Jo,” he echoed, “walk home alone.”

“Since I clearly can’t walk,” she replied with a gesture to the blood and loose skin hanging from her knee, “What’re you gonna do? Carry me?”

Bryan glanced around the parking lot.

The Chipotle was located in a strip mall with a nail shop, a third-rate pizzeria, and a Giant. Bryan’s gaze scanned the strip mall’s neon signs before landing on an abandoned grocery cart in the parking lot.

The shopping cart squeaked as Bryan wheeled Jo down the sidewalk. Jo lounged in the cart, aggressively humming the Star Wars theme song as she made the Millennium Falcon charm hanging from her lunchbox fly around.

Bryan laughed and it only enticed Jo to glare back at him and hum louder. “You know, I’m more a Star Trek person myself,” he said.

She dropped the ship and groaned. “You are the worst type of person. Star Trek isn’t even cool.”

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“Do you know how much money the last two movies made?”

Bryan chuckled. “What’d you do to get yourself nixed from the guest list?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s only ‘cause J.J. Abrams directed them.”

“What makes you think it was my fault?”

“Yeah and made them awesome.”

“Well, guess what? He jumped ship from the third movie to direct a real franchise.”

Bryan closed his eyes and cradled his heart with feigned pain. “That’s a low blow.”

Jo shrugged and said, “Truth hurts.”

“Not as much as that shiner probably does.” Jo snorted but didn’t volunteer any information. “How’d you get it?” She pointed to the lunchbox and Bryan blinked in response. “You got in a fight over a lunchbox?”

“Yes,” she said before quickly correcting.

“Well, no. Kinda.” She unsteadily unzipped the lunchbox to reveal an ice tray half-filled with red jello. “My friends,” she spat out the word as if it were a slur, “threw a party and didn’t invite me. I saw the pictures on Facebook and to add insult to injury, my roommate stole the jello shots I made and took them over there like the Judas she is. So, naturally, I was like, ‘Fuck all a ya’ll.

I’mma go take my shit back.’ So I go over to the apartment, sneak into the kitchen, and throw the ice tray with my jello shots into the lunchbox. I went to steal something else when fucking Nina walked in. This bitch. She tries to take the bottle from me. We’re pulling and pulling on it and then her hands slip, I pull too hard and nail myself in the face.”

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Bryan shrugged as the cart caught on a crack in the sidewalk. “Something tells me that’s not your first black eye.”

“And won’t be the last,” she said with a gap-toothed grin. Her gaze shifted to a critter running through the shadows across the street. “I unno though. It’s just frustratin’ ‘cause people never do what’s right because what’s right is always harder. If Nina and her gaggle of wantons just said, look, we don’t want to around I’d still be like, ‘fuck ya’ll’ but probably wouldn’t have been so vindictive about it all.” She looked back to the tray in her lap. “I’m sorry. I’ve been rude. Would ya like one?” she asked, holding up the jello to Bryan.

He shook his head. “No, I think I’m good.”

“You sure? They’re really good.” She spoke in a singsong voice, wiggling the tray to tantalize him.

“Positive.” He shrugged and dropped the tray into her lap. “What’s with the neon getup?”

“I’m a crossing guard.”

Jo giggled a bit. “You twirl a sign and herd yard apes?”

“Yard apes?”

“That’s what my Nana called children.

Buncha yard apes. When me and my

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cousins were little we’d be runnin’ around her backyard and when it was time for dinner she’d always say to one of our moms, ‘Tell them yard apes to get their asses inside and wash their hands.’”

Bryan laughed. “But it’s eleven something at night. Why yous still wearing that ugly vest?”

“Right after work, I had class and some errands to run. Forgot I had it on really.”

“Oh, do you go to the University too?”

He shook his head. “Police academy. “ “Shit, yous a cop?”

Bryan grinned at her terror. “Not yet. But I’m not even gonna ask how old you are.”

“Unless I’m being detained, I ain’t gotta answer shit,” she said. “Nana hated cops.”

“A lot of people do.”

“She said that people only become cops for two reasons. You either need the cash and don’t wanna work a real job or you have a superiority complex and wanna carry a big gun. Which is it for you?”

Bryan paused for a moment before saying, “Would you believe me if I said neither?” Jo shook her head. “Well,” he said, lifting the cart over another crack in the pavement.

“I guess if you boil it down it’s the money.

I don’t see the value of investing in education if there’s a low chance of making a return.”

Jo pointed at the quiet intersection as they approached. “Turn here.”

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Turning the cart, Bryan went on, “But I don’t know. At the end of the day, I just wanna do the right thing. When I was in high school, I saw a drive-by and the bullet hit a kid by mistake. I saw the shooter’s face, his tattoos, his friend’s piercings, everything. I even got their plates, but my old man wouldn’t let me come forward. They never caught the guys and I’ve regretted it ever since.” He shrugged. “Guess this is me balancing out my karma.”

Jo scooted around in the cart to face him.

She scratched at the interstices of the square impressions on her thighs and held up the tray of shots. “To doing what’s right,” she said, scooping out a square of jelly with her finger.

Bryan hesitated but eventually did the same. “To doing what’s right,” he said.

The two of them tapped squares. They swallowed them whole, letting the slimy gelatin slip its way down their throats.

Jo’s squashed gaze shifted to the brick apartment building beside them. “This is me,” she said, struggling to find her balance to stand up. When Bryan helped her jump down, her phone slid out of her back pocket and clattered against the metal bars of the cart.

“Whoa-oh,” Bryan said, picking up the flip phone. “Look at this dinosaur.” He flipped the phone open and thumbed out something on the number pad.

“If you ever find yourself in trouble again, give me a call.” He saved his number into the phone as “Good Guy Bryan” before closing it and handing it back.

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“I’ll come pick you up. No questions asked.”

“Alright then, stay out of trouble, you hear?”

A smile eased back onto Jo’s face as she wedged the phone back into her pocket.

“Thanks.”

She gave him another two-finger salute and said, “No promises.”

Silence settled between them, long but comfortable. In the quiet, they listened to the street breath with the occasional passing car and muffled music from the apartment building. With a small nod, Bryan broke the silence. “You, uh, you got your keys?” Jo nodded, patting the carabiner still clipped to her belt loop.

“Got that awful lunchbox?” Jo rolled her eyes and held it up, the Millennium Falcon knocking against the side of the bag. “Got the jello shots?” She held up the tray. “The killer pussy?”

Jo nodded with a laugh. “Yeah. I think I got it all.”

Bryan offered her one last smile before turning on his heels and pushing the cart away. As she unclipped her keys, Jolene watched him go. His reflective vest slinked into the shadows of the street and threw off every ounce of light it could.

Listening to the rattle of the cart, she still felt the vibrations from the ride slithering through her legs and up her spine. She felt the movement tingle in her teeth and tickle the space under her nose. The feeling muted the sting of her knee and the pulse of her black eye. Jo shuffled for the right key and stood on the doormat.

She leaned her head against the door and listened to the night sing, searching hard for the trundle of wheels and the whisper of footsteps.

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For the original publication and information on author Kat Lewis, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 12

CANYON VOICES

Issue 12

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FICTION | CHRIS FURRY

The Best Laid Plan

By Chris Furry

It’s a surreal feeling, being told you were going to die in such a sterile, cold environment. I've never really liked doctors’ offices, though before that day I'd never really had a reason to feel that way.

It's strange, the things you remember and the things you don't. I can't, for the life of me, remember what Dr. Trumbull said to me that morning, his exact words. I do, however, remember exactly what I had for breakfast and how it tasted, both when I ate it and when it came, unbidden, into the back of my throat and then into the small stainless steel sink in Dr. Trumbull's office. Two poached eggs, a slice of wheat toast, a piece of turkey bacon, two cups of black coffee, and a glass of fresh hand-squeezed orange juice. It was delicious, the first time anyway, the second time I regretted the orange juice, its extra acidity burning my nose and stinging my eyes to tears. Of course, I remember the gist of what I was told, anaplastic astrocytoma, a high-grade brain tumor. The tumor itself is inoperable, but not as aggressive as other forms of glioma. These things I remember, but I can't recall exactly how he broke the news to me that I couldn't be cured, that I was going to die. I remember the pattern on his tie with pristine clarity, but the words are a blur.

It's odd, the way things change when the prognosis is grim. People in your life start to treat you differently, not on purpose of course, but because they are walking on eggshells. Words become forbidden abbreviated to their first letters as if saying "the C-word" might upset me less than saying "cancer." Some words become

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completely taboo and with them, any mention of their subject matter. In this realm of words, "death" is king, and upon his brow lies the thorny crown of angst and regret. The worst words are the ones that people assume will lift your spirits, or brighten your mood, "hope," being chief among them. Hope is the darkest, foulest word that can be uttered in front of a dying person, precisely because they have none and to dangle it in front of them is cruel.

It’s astonishing how quickly bad news travels. I have told 11 people that I am ill, all close friends, or family. Since that time, I have received 39 "Get Well Soon" cards in my mailbox, none from anyone I'd told. I have been added to prayer chains in churches across town and across the country. A litany of well-wishers has called, dropped by, and written. More people have made contact with me in the last six months than I have spoken to in the last six years. Never, in all my 31 years, have so many people seemed so concerned with how I am feeling. I once had a flu so virulent, that I was hospitalized for four days and I very nearly died from the pneumonia I developed. During that time, I saw my mother twice, her and no one else. No homemade chicken soup awaited me upon my release, no generic Hallmark cards with somber pictures, emblazoned with "Get Well Soon," even though getting well was a possibility. No, four days on a respirator and then two weeks at home fighting back pneumonia in relative solitude.

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The first 24-hours, I was in complete disbelief. I went home, put on my gym clothes, and worked out using my normal routine. I spoke to no one, stunned silence perhaps, though I rarely spoke to anyone at the gym. I went home that evening and ate a sensible meal, chicken most likely though that particular detail is as muted as Dr. Trumbull's words. When I woke up, I ate breakfast and got ready for work, but as I pulled my suit jacket on a thought occurred to me. I wasn't going to be going to Italy with my friends next summer, a trip we'd planned nearly a year before because I wouldn't be alive. At that moment, the weight of the situation washed over me, like a tsunami in the wake of an earthquake.

I spent the next six days in various stages of emotional breakdown, manic hysteria; deep, dark depression, and everything in between. At last, I settled on one thing. The one thing that would make or break me as I fought for precious time. My legacy. What I have to offer to those I leave behind and what it says about me when I'm gone. *

* *

*

The first people I told were my mother and grandmother, my mother wept as I expected she might. What I did not expect, was my grandmother’s reaction. She was angry, not at me, not at the diagnosis, or the doctor who gave it. She was angry at the unfairness of it, the sheer iniquitousness of a man my age being cut down by something so devastating. She vowed that we would fight until there was no fight left. As I sat in her small breakfast nook, I began to feel my spirits lift for the first time since I’d stumbled out of the oncologist’s office, a week ago.

As my grandmother rallied, my mother nodded grimly in agreement. She stared at me as though she had never seen me as if I were a stranger, but CANYON VOICES

one that she loved fiercely. I had never seen her look that way before. She suddenly stood and engulfed me in an embrace that drove the fear from my heart, as quickly as it drove the breath from my lungs. She held me that way for a long time, when she finally pulled away she had stopped crying. Her eyes were a fierce crimson, puffy and dark around the edges, but her cheeks were dry.

“We’re not gonna quit, Greg. Ever. We’ll fight with you until our very last.” She ran her hand along my cheek like she did when I was a kid.

“I know, momma. I know.” I hadn’t called her that since I was a kid, either.

The next person I told was unintentional, the crushing weight of it forced the news from my lips, unbidden and unlooked for. Dr. Stephen Jennings was the principal at the school, where I had been filling young minds with Shakespeare and Harper Lee since I was 25. I was in his office, discussing my plans for the future of Ralph Waldo Emerson High School’s English program when it burst forth from my lips. Slack-jawed and wide-eyed he stared at me, a mingling look of pity and horror wrinkling his features.

“I, uh, I didn’t even know you were sick, Greg.

Are, I mean, are you alright?” He quickly gained control of his facial features and his look was wholly one of concern.

If I could reach just one of them, if I could change just one life, it was all worth it.

“I’m fine, Stephen, thank you. I’m not even really sure where that came from. I’ve only told my mother and grandmother. I’m fine, really. So, about this novel selection for the ninth graders next quarter, I was thinking Of Mice and Men. It fits the curriculum and it’s a great story.” My

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voice cracked and I choked back the burning emotion that was threatening to explode out of me.

grad students? That’s not exactly ‘Breaking Bad’ material.”

He laughed, “No, I don’t suppose it is.”

“Greg, this, you know, it can wait. I mean, we don’t have to talk about curriculum right now.

What do you need?” He sat down across from me and folded his hands, every fiber of his body language screaming at me to talk to him.

And I did. I spent the next three hours pouring out my soul to him, crying, screaming, cursing the iniquity of it all. To his tremendous credit, he sat there and listened, offering advice and condolences only when it was called for. When I was finally and completely spent, I chuckled.

“What’s funny?” A curious expression clouded his face.

“I eat paleo, limited red meat, low dairy intake, high fiber but low or no gluten. I exercise four or five days a week and run at least 3 miles each of those days. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, nothing.

I’m healthy as a horse. I mean, besides the cancer.” I laughed harder this time.

“Doesn’t make any sense, does it, Greg? My grandpa, rest his soul, was 94 when he shuffled off his mortal coil and he drank, smoked, and ate bacon. All on the morning he died. His whole life he was that way. Heart disease, but not the acute kind, the old and worn out kind,” a small halfgrin creased his face, “Hey, uh, you’re not going to go all, you know, Walter White on me, are you?”

I barked laughter, dissolving into fits of hysteria.

Tears streaming down my face, I finally calmed myself enough to choke out, “I-I’m a damn English teacher, Steve. Wh-What am I going to d-do? Wr-Write thesis papers for overworked

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*

* *

*

A week later I realized that it was that exact moment, sitting at Stephen’s desk, that I knew what my legacy was. My kids, well, not mine I don’t have any, but my students. If I could reach just one of them, if I could change just one life, it was all worth it. That thought that new-found purpose became my will to go on.

I began targeted chemotherapy, along with radiation therapy, a few weeks after that day. To say I was unprepared for the changes it would cause in my body would be a severe understatement. I was gripped by debilitating nausea, made worse by the fact that I was so tired I could hardly manage to claw my way across my bed and hang my head over the edge, where I had a five-gallon bucket standing guard.

For days following my first treatment, I was wracked with wave after wave of violent, gutwrenching sickness and exhaustion like I didn’t know I could feel and still be alive. As soon as I was able to stand, however, I sat at my small dining room table and planned a lesson for my first day back. Three ninth grade periods, all of whom had been reading Of Mice and Men for nearly four weeks. I dove into my lesson plan as if it were a life raft, working for hours to make sure it was perfect.

I walked slowly and unsteadily into the dark, cold classroom the following morning. I was in pain but determined to present a cheerful face for my students. Sitting at my desk, I began to go through my lesson plan again. Really, I was just killing time until my first-period class arrived.

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The door latch clicked open and my head snapped up, startling the young girl who had walked in.

“So, I don’t understand the title. I mean, there aren’t any mice in it, Lenny loves rabbits.”

“Good morning, Lisa, how are you today?” I smiled at the short, thin Vietnamese girl, who stared back at me, her surprised eyes magnified by the thick lenses on her horn-rimmed glasses.

“Mr. Ellsworth, you’re finally back! How are you feeling?” Lisa’s face brightened suddenly.

“I’m doing well. Are you ready for our discussion today?”

She fidgeted, hands absentmindedly playing with the hem of her t-shirt, “I think so, but this book confuses me. I’m not sure who the good guy is.”

“Does there always have to be a good guy? Very rarely in life, do we see heroes like those we see in stories. Black and white, good and evil, the truth is often far more gray,” As I said this, students began to stream into the room, “But don’t worry, we’ll get to that soon enough.”

As the kids walked through the door, lost in the day-to-day dramas that encapsulated their high school existences, the scene replayed itself.

Once the last surprised look had faded from the face of Danny Weller, who was a minute late, as usual, I stood before my first-period class and smiled.

“Okay, who has questions?” Thirty hands shot into the air, “About the book?” Thirty hands slowly returned to their desks, then slowly, as if unsure whether it was okay, a hand raised. I nodded at the owner of the hand, a short and rather bookish young man named Bryan Singleton.

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I smiled, “The title comes from a poem by a man named Robert Burns. ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men, go often awry, and leave us naught but grief and pain, for the promised joy.’

Can anyone tell me what that has to do with our story? Why Steinbeck might have chosen that title?”

Blank stares met my slow gaze. I was just about to ask the question a different way when a hand slowly inched its way toward the ceiling. “Yes, Danny, you have an answer?”

“Uh, yeah, well maybe, I mean-” Danny sputtered, and his face flushed bright crimson, “Well, like, George and Lennie were working to get their own place, right? That was their plan, but no matter how hard they tried, they uh, well they couldn’t do it. You know, ‘cuz like, Lennie was, I don’t know.”

“No, that’s good, can anyone expand on that?” I was surprised, Danny hardly ever said anything that wasn’t about baseball.

“Well, Lennie killed stuff,” A small voice said, it belonged to Jen, a small, shy young girl who I don’t recall ever having heard speak during class without me calling on her directly, “I mean, not on purpose, but because he didn’t know how strong he was. He loved rabbits like Bryan said, but when he touched them, they died. That is what got them to Soledad in the first place, right?

Lennie grabbing that girl’s dress? And that’s why, no matter how well they planned, they were never going to get their own place. Only pain and suffering.”

I was blown away at the accuracy of that statement. In the first ten minutes of class, the

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students had managed to not only throw my lesson out the window but to amaze me with their interpretations of the book. “That is exactly right, Jen. You see, Lennie didn’t know any better. How could he? But George was responsible for him and that meant he had to be responsible for Lennie’s actions, too. So, what happened that destroyed their plans?”

For the next 45 minutes, my class did something we hadn’t done before. We just talked, no quick writes, none of our typical activities. For the first time, every student was engaged, even the meekest, a tall, heavy boy named Michael Enderson. I can’t even remember the last time I heard him speak, when I would call on him to join the conversation he typically just blushed and lowered his head. Today he was engaged and talking, joining in and expanding on thoughts and ideas. When the bell rang no one moved, I had to dismiss them. As the last student left the room, I walked over to my desk and picked up my lesson plan. Giving it a long look, I threw it in the trash.

I shook my head, “The best-laid plans of mice and men.” *

* *

*

Six weeks later, I no longer recognized myself in the mirror. My hair, though always trimmed short, was now gone. Once I woke up with a pile of it on my pillow, my razor took the rest. I was gaunt, my ribs stuck out from my chest at strange angles, the chemo having robbed me of my appetite. I was exhausted constantly, the skin under my eyes hung limp in deep purple bags.

When I brushed my teeth, I had to avoid the left side of my mouth, because there was a painful sore there that bled if I rasped my toothbrush across it.

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Today was my PET scan, which my oncologist was somewhat hopeful about. The chemotherapy was really aggressive, so the hope was there would be enough reduction to back it off a little.

As I sat in the waiting room another patient sat next to me, tears streaking her face and ruining her makeup.

“MRI, PET, or CT?” I didn’t really want to know, but I couldn’t hear her cry anymore.

“Huh? Oh, uh CT. You?” She faked a smile.

“PET, my first one. How old are you? You look so young.” And she did, devastatingly young.

Suddenly, I was terrified of her answer. I wished and prayed that she wouldn’t answer.

“I’m fourteen, I’ll be fifteen in two months. On the 23rd.”

I made a valiant effort to put a smile on for her, while my stomach lurched, and my soul screamed at the injustice. Fourteen? I had students in my class her age, to think of one of them here, in this cold room waiting to hear terrible news was more than I could bear. I sat there, babbling about how I hoped she would be fine and that I was sure she was going to hear good news.

When the nurse finally walked in and called my name the young girl, whose name I didn’t even know, wrapped her skinny arms around my neck and whispered, “Good luck.”

I practically ran away from her and had there been a way to do so with any tact, or dignity I would have. By the time I arrived in the dark, cool radiology room, tears had begun to overflow my eyes and spill down my cheeks. As I settled in the machine, I closed my eyes and thought about George and Lennie.

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When I got home that evening and sat down at my desk, I had almost pushed her out of my mind. I was looking through my emails, drifting between that, and grading papers. I didn’t even hear my phone ringing, only when the nurse began talking on the answering machine did, I realize and pick the receiver up.

“Oh, hello Mr. Ellsworth. I guess I caught you at a bad time. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, Tessa, everything is great. What, uh, what’s up?” I tried to sound upbeat, but I wasn’t expecting a call back so quickly.

“Dr. Trumbull wanted me to call and let you know that he has your scans and he’d like to see you on Thursday to go over them. Is the morning or afternoon better for you?”

*

* *

“Thursday? That’s the day after tomorrow. I guess the morning will work,” The day after tomorrow? That was much sooner than I expected, frighteningly sooner, “Is, uh, is everything alright? I mean this is pretty quick, right?”

“Mr. Ellsworth-” “Greg, please.”

“Greg, I understand that you are anxious. I really wish there was some information I could give you, but I just schedule the appointments. I’m really, very sorry. Is 8:45 good for you?”

“Yes, Tessa. 8:45 is fine, I’ll see you then. Thank you.” I laid the receiver in its cradle and lay my head down on my desk.

I woke up the next morning and sat up, or tried anyway, the muscles in my neck and back screamed in protest. When I finally pulled myself to my feet and stretched out, my joints popped

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and cracked like machine gunfire. I went upstairs, showered, got dressed, and headed drove to school. The day washed over me in a blur of meetings and classes, everything seemed to flow like liquid, no real substance to any of it.

As I packed my briefcase full of papers that needed grading, I noticed a flashing icon on my computer screen. I reminded myself to check my email when I got home. I drove home in what seemed like a trance, I wasn’t just worried about the next day, I was worried that I was running out of time. I was worried that I was going to wake up one day soon, or rather not wake up, and have done nothing that mattered. Nothing that made a difference. As I drifted off to sleep, the thought nagged at me allowing only a fitful, restless sleep.

*

It’s a surreal feeling, being told that you are going to die in such a sterile, cold environment.

Learning that what you thought could be measured in months, or years was, in fact, measurable in weeks. This time I was much more coherent while Dr. Trumbull explained my fate.

New growth, my tumor had metastasized and spread to my lymph nodes. Nothing I could have imagined would have possibly prepared me to hear what he was telling me. My head spun and again, my breakfast came unbidden into that stainless-steel sink. I sat there for ten minutes in silence, Dr. Trumbull staring at me. He straightened his tie; the same tie he’d worn the last time I’d seen him. It’s strange what you remember and what you don’t. I remember, with absolute clarity, the exact moment that I saw the understanding dawn on the faces of my students.

That a-ha! moment that you hear about in college. I remember the look on my

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grandmother’s face when she vowed to fight with me until there was no fight left.

It’s a difficult idea to comprehend, that soon you were going to stop living, to stop being. It made no sense, not the idea of death, that made perfect sense. What made no sense was the idea that it didn’t matter, that it was so pointless. My whole life I believed that my reason for existing was to give my life purpose, that my way of giving purpose to my life was to change the lives of others. I had spent six years of my life trying to do that, trying to get more than just that dawn of understanding. Make no mistake, that was a satisfying moment and one that I am proud of, but to affect real, lasting change was the goal of any teacher.

When I finally nodded my way through Dr. Trumbull’s explanations of treatment options, condolences, and offer to recommend someone who could help put my affairs in order, I made my way to my car. Numb and tired, I made my way home. My initial instinct was to just go to bed, sleep for as long as my body would sleep, and then take a sleeping pill to sleep some more.

Instead, I made some tea and sat down on the small balcony outside of my apartment. I sat there all day, reading Steinbeck and writing notes. By the time I’d finished, I had a complete outline for the book including assignments, free writes, and discussion periods. The sun had begun to set and since my apartment faced east, it began to get dark quickly. I went inside and succumbed to my weariness.

I woke up suddenly and looked around my room, unsure of my surroundings at first. It was still dark outside and I was confused, I reached for my alarm clock and stared at it, 6:15. I crawled out of bed and decided to do something that I hadn’t done since I was a freshman in college. I decided to watch the sunrise. I made strong, rich CANYON VOICES

coffee and walked out onto the balcony with my laptop. Maybe I would write a little, maybe I would write a lot, maybe I wouldn’t be able to write at all. I sat and watched as the first crimson rays burst through the gathered darkness, piercing it with fiery red and gold rays of light. As the sun began its slow climb into the eastern sky, I opened my laptop and noticed an icon blinking at me. I had never checked my email. Worried that it might be from Stephen, I opened my mailbox and found a single unread message from an address I didn’t recognize.

Dear Mr. Ellsworth, I was riding home in my car yesterday after picking up my son from school and I asked him how his day was, expecting the usual shrug, or “fine.” Instead, he told me that he had decided that he wanted to be a writer. This was a shock to me because my son is not even a reader and I doubt he has ever written anything he didn’t absolutely have to. It was a shock because Michael has never expressed an interest in anything deeper than video games. He has never been a great student, or an athlete, or done anything that wasn’t a computer game.

When I asked him why he was suddenly so interested in being a writer, his answer was so earnest, so emotional, that I had to pull my car to the side of the road to listen to it. He told me that he had never realized how powerful writing could be until he had read Of Mice and Men. He said that the way Steinbeck told stories was like nothing he’d ever read before. He didn’t just tell them, he told about life, about humanity in a way that was so genuine it was hard to believe that the stories were fiction. As I sat there listening to my quiet, shy young son, I realized his eyes were glittering and his cheeks were flushed. He was actually excited. About learning. Michael was more excited about

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reading and writing than I have ever seen him about anything, to include the latest Call of Duty game. I asked him where this sudden love for literature came from and he stared at me blankly for a second before saying, “From Mr. Ellsworth, my English teacher.”

He said that you had said something one day, before class to another student, that had struck him as profound. “Does there always have to be a good guy? Very rarely in life, do we see heroes like those we see in stories. Black and white, good and evil, the truth is often far more gray.”

He went on and on about how real that was, how much sense it all made after he heard it.

Never, in 15 years, have I seen my son so fired up. Since we got home yesterday it’s like the floodgates have opened and my son is finally starting to bloom into the flower, I knew he was.

He wrote a very short story last night, handing it to me excitedly and asking me to read it. It was very good and I’m not just saying that because I am his mother, I am saying it because I really enjoyed it. I don’t know what to say, I pulled up to the school this afternoon and my son, who I don’t think I’ve ever seen have a conversation with anyone else, was standing in front of the school talking to a group of kids excitedly, laughing and joking. I sat there for a few minutes and just watched him. It was incredible, it was everything I’ve ever wanted for him. Friends, a purpose, a dream, everything. Through everything that I’ve seen in the last few days, I come back to one thing. You. You ignited a fire in my son, an inferno that thirsts for literature and knowledge. My son also told me about your condition, I am very sorry by the way, it is so terrible. Michael though, he didn’t just come out and say that you have cancer, or that you were terminally ill, he said that it was an injustice. That it wasn’t fair

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that you were being taken away from the kids who need you. That the best-laid plans had only left us with pain, once again. I don’t even understand what all of that means, I only know one thing. You, Mr. Ellsworth, are an amazing teacher. You have given my son a purpose, you gave changed him in a way that I never thought possible, no matter how hard I wished or dreamed. I can only hope that you receive a thousand emails like this one, because though it will never be enough to truly express the profound impact you have had on the young men and women at Emerson High, perhaps it will give you some idea of that impact.

Thank you, Mr. Ellsworth, from the bottom of my heart.

Christine Enderson, Michael’s mother.

As I sat there, in the warm glow of the morning’s first light, I closed my eyes and felt its warmth on my cheeks as if I’d never felt it before. For the first time since I’d gone to the doctor about a reoccurring headache nearly a year ago, I felt contented with my life. For the first time, I felt free. Though the best-laid plans may go awry, though life may be shorter than we’d ever believe, I know one thing now for certain. The purpose is not in the destination; the purpose is found in the journey.

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◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Chris Furry, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 13

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

FICTION | ABBY TIMMONS

The Architect’s Ballad

By Abby Timmons

I built this house with my own two hands, on the greenest plot of land in town. Elle liked green grass. When I took her to see the land, she stepped out of the carriage, white-gloved hand in mine started running, and pulled me to the ground.

Laughing, her brown hair whipping out of her bonnet in the rough New England wind, she fell upon that green grass and like children, we stared up at the clouds waltzing across the blue summer sky and tried to pick out shapes in them.

“We will be very happy here, Walter, won’t we?” she asked, her blue eyes adoring.

I pulled her close. “Always,” I replied, with utter conviction. It was at least partly true.

A gust of wind bellowed, bringing with it a sweep of storm clouds from the sea. A wiser man might have recognized it as a foretelling, might have heard the whisper in the wind, a warning from beyond. But wise I was not. I was nothing except young and blessed with good fortune and optimism.

I built a grand three-story house, a magnificent carriage house, and an acre of land for gardens and children. On the topmost floor, I built my Elle a cupola, a windowed dome from which she could

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view the harbor. When the house was finished and I went away to collect my parents from the Old Country, Elle often wrote to me from that spot. When I returned, she saw my ship come in and ran down to the harbor to meet me with the other officers’ wives. She planted flowers; perennials, so they would return each year. And a willow tree, that I would watch grow up its entire life.

And we were happy, for a time, though the happiness, at least, was not for always.

It happened in the third winter. Elle was round and glowing proudly with our first child. Little did we know this child would never see the light of day.

That was an exceptionally cold winter, the kind that makes your skin feel paperthin, your bones brittle. We moved our bedroom to the third story, as the rising heat from the furnace in the cellar made it marginally warmer. One night, we were preparing for bed. Shivering, Elle sat brushing her long brown locks of hair.

They shimmered in the light from the oil lamps on the bedside, and I watched admiringly.

Then she jumped up quite suddenly.

“Rufus!” she cried. “Where did Rufus go?”

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She was referring to her beloved terrier, a little rat of a creature that irked me to no end, but which she adored. “I haven’t seen him since he chased Mrs. Peterson to the cellar.”

“The cellar? He can’t stay in there all night.” She grabbed her dressing gown from its brass hook on the wall and put on my carpet slippers. “I’ll go get him.”

“Darling, why don’t you let me?” I implored. “I cannot have you walking down all those flights of stairs in your condition.”

“My condition?” she repeated. “I’m pregnant, dear, not an invalid.” She kissed me quickly on the cheek, took a candle in hand, and made for the door.

“You worry too much.”

I rolled my eyes. She had quite a mind of her own, my wife, a fact that many an acquaintance had warned me about before we had wed, and for which I only loved her more.

Still, I worried as the minutes ticked by and I did not hear her footsteps on the stairwell. Perhaps that dog was causing trouble. I waited ten minutes, then, annoyed, went after her.

The house was silent, the housekeeper long gone home for the night. In the dark and quiet, a nagging feeling of unease rose from the pit of my stomach. I took the stairs faster than normal, my nerves rising as I descended. I wished I had the sense to bring a candle.

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The second floor was far colder than the upstairs and had there been any light, I knew I would have seen my breath.

I revel in the memory of that cold now.

Such sensation, such an awareness that I was alive!

Had it not been for the sense of dread I felt, or the terrible events that transpired, it would have been a most dearly held memory.

I reached the back door, and as I turned the knob, many things happened at once.

Rufus’s frantic barking, if one could call it that, for I had never heard an animal make such sound.

The smell of smoke assaulted my senses; my eyes watered, I coughed uncontrollably, adding to the noise.

And beneath these sounds, there was another: utter, dead, silence.

“Elle!” I cried, running down the stairs through the haze. “Can you hear me?

ELLE!” But she couldn’t hear me. When I got down to the last stairwell, I saw why.

She was broken, spread facedown at unnatural angles halfway down the steps.

The metallic smell of blood overpowered even the smoke.

Strange, Strange, I thought numbly, even as I charged straight through the fire, burning off all my hair, rolled her over, and checked for a pulse. Strange the very essence of life has such an industrial

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smell like it isn’t really alive after all. Like none of us are, and we are instead just machines, built-in some fictional image of a God who abandoned me that night and going through the motions of life until our mechanical hearts break down and smear our essence all over the cellar steps.

The fire spread. I probably could have stood up and been fine, but I did not.

Instead, I held her mangled, distorted body to mine until I couldn’t feel anymore. When I lost consciousness, I didn’t realize I had died.

The next thing I knew I was standing beside the physician and the fire chief, and they were explaining to a neighbor that someone must have slipped, dropping the lamp. That the fire had not spread up the stone walls or across the stone floor of the basement, and that they had put it out before it had ruined the upstairs. I wanted to tell them that I was sorry, that I should have insisted on going down instead of her, but when I opened my mouth and tried to speak, nothing came out but smoke, and they couldn’t hear me anyway.

There are no instructions on being a ghost. No manual to consult, no answers to your questions. No one told me where the woman I loved and my child had gone, or why I couldn’t go with them. I understood as much of my condition as the storytellers who fictionalized me, as the many children I saw come and go over the years who swore to their parents they saw someone on the back steps, in the corner of the basement, only to be chastised for having such wild CANYON VOICES

imaginations. But I was there, stuck, always.

The flowers she’d planted died of thirst, their roots overtaken by weeds growing wilder with each passing year, the grass we’d once rolled around on higher than my knees. Then one year, men came. I saw the house I’d built restored by other hands that were not gentle, not artists’ hands. They were not architects, just machines. I watched them divide each floor into its own apartment. Years later, other men converted the carriage house into a garage. I watched the world develop and change from the confines of this prison I’d built around myself. And I tried to escape.

After a hundred years, I was sure I could not leave the property. I could go outside and wander around the yard, I could enter the carriage house, I could even go into the front yard and watch as they put up more houses around mine, as the sign for Linden St. went up on the corner. But I could not leave. I was bound to this land. I had signed the papers, having no idea how binding a contract it would be.

In the year 1914, I had a breakthrough.

One evening, while the woman living in the first-floor apartment cooked dinner for her family, I passed my hand through the stove’s flame.

And the most amazing thing happened.

Pain. I felt pain! Shocked, I screamed, snatched my hand back to examine it, but it was not burned. It had the same translucent quality the rest of my body did. But oh, how it hurt! Beautiful,

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wonderful, searing pain! But immediately followed a surge of sadness. How lucky are the living, I thought, staring at the mother humming to herself, to feel alive without it.

However, I had learned something: fire was the answer. I watched the family eat dinner together, talking, laughing, clueless to me staring at them from the doorway wondering how to die. Could I start a fire? Sometimes I could move things if I tried hard enough. If they left a candle burning, could I tip it? But as I watched them, coveting their ignorance, their joy, I realized I could not. If I started a fire and they got hurt…no. I would not subject an innocent family, innocent children, to the fate that had befallen mine.

So it had to be an accident, then. I had to wait, and hope it would happen on its own.

More years passed. The willow tree grew as tall as the house. I watched dozens of families come and go, their children grow up and stop climbing its branches.

Although I grew accustomed to invisibility, spending my days watching others live theirs, sometimes the loneliness became stifling, and I attempted to make contact. They could never see me, of that much I was certain, not for longer than a second so brief it seemed imaginary. But they could feel me; a cold breeze as I walked through them, though it was summer, and all the windows were closed; an odd flickering of lights as I passed my hand through the wall into the wiring. Feel me, but never see me.

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I longed for a connection. And in January of 2004, I got my wish.

The house was in shambles. Once blue paint faded to a dull grey and chipped away, revealing patches of bare brown wood underneath. The ivy growing in the front yard became wild, taking over the entire front of the house. Sometimes the landlord found the time to cut the grass, but generally it grew knee-high, and was really more weeds than grass. Neglected, surrounded by a neighborhood of beautiful Victorian homes, the exterior finally reflected what lay inside: a mourning, rotting piece of soul, both haunted by my own ghosts, my wife and child and the families I’d grown attached to over the centuries who would always, inevitably, leave; and the haunter.

The second floor was empty, the family gone, leaving behind silence heavy with dust and broken pieces of children’s toys.

I wandered the rooms, tried to recall what their laughter sounded like, the many children who had passed through this house. Then, one day, I heard that sound again, from the front hallway, coming up the stairs. The door opened, and in walked a new family.

“This is the dining room,” the landlord was saying.

“It would be perfect for an office, wouldn’t it?” the woman turned to her husband and said, her eyes, so like her daughter’s, twinkling. “And a classroom.

We homeschool the kids,” she added to the landlord.

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“That works too!” he was quick to say, surely just hoping, as I was, that someone would want to live in this pitiful place.

But they loved it. The two young ones, a girl and boy, ran around exclaiming over everything; the quaint hallway connecting the master bedroom to the one they would be sharing, the screened-in sun porch off of the kitchen – “Just like Nana’s house!”- and, most of all, the backyard. I watched the girl stare out the window in silent awe, her eyes actually filling with tears of wonder, and I wanted to know where she came from, what place, what life, could possibly make this one look so beautiful.

The mother walked to her daughter’s side. She didn’t touch her, but as she mirrored her daughter’s awed stare, the girl looked up and said, “I love you, Mummy.”

The mother smiled and said, “I love you too, Elle.”

If I’d had a heart that could beat, it would have stopped.

They moved in less than a week later.

Of all the families I’d watched over the years, this was the first, and the only one that was ever mine.

It didn’t take long, though, to realize I didn’t know which was darker: the ghost watching the family in secret, or the family full of secrets and ghosts.

“This time will be different,” the mother said as she and the father laid down to

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bed on the first night. “I’m going to get better this time, I promise.”

And although he smiled tenderly and held her close, his too-old eyes had a look that said she’d broken this promise before.

She was, quite simply, a drunk.

“Homeschooling” was code for letting the children raise each other during the day while she slept off a hangover from the night before, and at night, following their father around adoringly, a man who was too young to be forced to give up on his dreams and who was always, perpetually, tired.

I never doubted that she loved her children, but I doubted from the start if she knew what love really meant.

Still, they persevered, as all families do, I suppose and found things to be happy about. Little Elle spent hours reading outside, her back against the tree, which she childishly named Willow, played games with her brother, and sat for ridiculous amounts of time trying to befriend aloof stray cats.

She quickly became like a book I could not stop reading. Through her, I learned to love my house again. That first spring, she read The Secret Garden and began a quest to restore the yard. “It’s beautiful,” she’d insist, “it’s just hiding.” She divided her time between reading and weeding, and delightfully uncovered perennial flowers that first spring.

After her example, her father and the landlord began efforts to bring my house back to life. They spent a whole weekend

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taming the ivy, while I hung from the second story window watching, nervous that little Elle would cut her hands on the thorns. She always insisted on helping.

I actually smiled. “Yes. I built this house, a long, long time ago.”

One afternoon I watched, perched in the tree, as she pulled dead grass from around some daffodils. “There, now you can breathe,” she said, echoing the book.

“You’re my own secret garden.”

My smile faded. “I…yes. Are you scared of me?”

Then she turned around and froze.

For a moment I didn’t understand what she was staring at. I looked behind me, from left to right, searching for something out of the ordinary, before I realized: her eyes were locked on mine.

The world seemed to stand still as I waited for her to look away, frown, convince herself that she hadn’t really caught a glimpse of me, that it was a shadow, a mistake, nothing. They always did. But she didn’t. She kept on staring, the first time in centuries that someone had looked at me, not through me.

I wanted to speak, but I wondered…did I even still have a voice? It had been centuries since I’d tried, only to produce nothing but a thin cloud of dust and smoke.

But this time, when I opened my mouth, I made a sound.

“Can you…can you see me?”

She nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Walter. And you’re…Elle.”

“Do you live here too?” she asked.

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“Are you a ghost, Walter?”

She paused for a moment, watching me quizzically. Then she merely shrugged, and my universe turned upside down.

“You’re a good ghost. I can tell.”

From then on we were friends. I never even visited the other apartments anymore but lived on the second floor with this family, my family. But I never forgot my Elle.

“Do you miss your family?” little Elle asked me one afternoon as she weaved crowns out of dandelion flowers.

I paused, considering. “Yes…I miss them every day, but not the same as I once did.

We are different. I am sure they still exist somewhere, but we exist in different worlds. It’s not the same as missing someone who is still alive.”

She looked down at the flower in her hand. “That’s how I feel about my mom,” she replied, fingers tearing the weed into pieces.

“It’s like even when she is here, she’s not.

She’s always somewhere else, in some other world where there’s no room for anyone but her. There’s no point missing her.”

She often said things like this, far too old and sad for her age.

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As Elle learned to hate her mother, so did I. It was a gradual process, a subtle whittling away of my sympathy for her pain, my willingness to overlook her many, many shortcomings. The tipping point came when Elle was 11.

It was a cold day. Elle sat in the living room reading, and I next to her, reading over her shoulder as I often did, one of her favorite stories about an orphan who discovers he is a wizard. She liked books about orphans.

Her mother was in her bedroom. From behind the closed door, we could hear her laughing, talking on the phone to a man that, if past experience was any indication, was probably not her husband, the clinking and pouring as she refilled her glass. Aside from flinching when that laugh rang out especially loud, Elle acted as though she couldn’t hear.

Then the door opened, and she came out.

Elle glanced at her—red cheeks, glazed eyes, dangerous smile—then back at her book. She stood swaying in the doorway, surveying her daughter. Then she slunk over and sat down on her other side.

“What’re you reading?” she asked sweetly.

Wordlessly, Elle turned the cover in her mother’s direction.

“Nice. Do you want to play a game? Or take a walk?”

Elle just shook her head.

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“Why not?” Her face fell into a childish pout. “You don’t want to spend time with me? Don’t you think I’m any fun?”

Slowly, Elle lowered her book and met her mother’s gaze, her own eyes steely. “I think you’re drunk – at noon,” she spat with venom. “That’s the only reason you want to spend time with me. You just want me to tell you it’s okay. You don’t care about me.”

The ticking of the clock was the only sound that followed.

They stared at each other. Her mother’s face transformed: shock, hurt, anger, but then – nothing. Her face drained of all emotion, becoming more terrifying than if she had burst into rage. She leaned toward Elle.

Elle stood up. Her book fell forgotten to her side as she took several hasty steps backward, and tripped on her own feet.

This brought a manic laugh out of her mother. Laughing, she followed after Elle, her eyes and feet perfectly steady.

I tried to stop her as she chased Elle around the house. With every ounce of strength I had, I tried to grab her and pull her back, prayed to a God I didn’t even believe in anymore, but it was no use. My fingers slipped through her like I was nothing but wind. Laughing like a Macbethean witch, she kept running.

Elle skidded to the bathroom door, slammed it behind her. The lock clicked. I slipped through it, watched her curl up on the floor, arms around her legs, hyperventilating.

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Her mother banged her fist on the door, screeching, “Let me in!”

“No!” yelled Elle.

A few more minutes of her pounding fists, then the sound of her body slumping against it onto the ground.

Racking sobs.

“You don’t know what it’s like to have someone not care about you!” she cried.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be abused!”

“I do,” Elle whispered, but only I could hear her.

Eventually, her mother left. But Elle stayed. Curled in a ball, her eyes glassy like she was the one who’d been drinking, perfectly still.

I tried to speak to her. “It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

She didn’t move.

“Elle? Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Elle? Elle!”

Desperate, I waved my hand in front of her face. She didn’t even blink.

I was in denial for a few days. She must just be tired of me, I told myself. She wants to be alone. She’s become afraid of me. But they were all lies. She wasn’t ignoring me - she didn’t know I was there.

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Winter came. She wandered around the yard, shivering, hands buried in her pockets. “Walter,” she sighed, turning her face up to the falling snow. “Where are you?”

“I’m here!” I shouted, inches from her ear. “I’m right here!”

Still, she couldn’t hear me.

What followed were the darkest of times.

What’s worse, I often wondered, being mute or having a voice no one can hear?

Elle seemed as miserable as me. She didn’t sit next to Willow anymore.

Instead, she spent most of her time in her room, curtains were drawn tight, writing sad poems and doodling pictures of eyes dripping tears.

One day when Elle was 13, her mother left and never came back. Elle and her brother started going to school, and I was alone all day. I took to following the landlord’s cat around, but even she couldn’t hear me.

Then the phone call came. January 13th.

Her mother had suffered a stroke, was found alone in a hotel room in Philadelphia, of all places, and was in a coma. The father gathered the children in his office and they sat on the old carpet floor while he struggled to explain the concept of “brain dead” to thirteen and eleven-year-olds.

Things moved very fast then. The very next day she was taken off life support.

There was a funeral. Then three months to the day after she’d died, the father

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remarried. His children were windswept, broken.

barrier keeping me imprisoned. I watched their car turn the corner.

He and the new mother sat them all down in the living room one night for a “family meeting,” a frequent and irritating occurrence in this new family.

And then I spent the next year walking around the yard in circles.

“We’ve decided we need a change,” the new woman, whom I didn’t much like, explained. “A new start, where there are no bad memories. So, we’re moving to Arizona!”

No. No, it couldn’t be. As I listened to their speech about new beginnings and how this was the best thing for everyone, I stared at Elle’s face. She wore the glassy-eyed stare she got whenever she wanted to be somewhere far away from reality— “in some other world where there’s no room for anyone but her.” I couldn’t make myself believe that I’d never see their faces again. This couldn’t really be happening.

But it happened. They packed up and left that summer. Elle cast one last sad look around the empty kitchen.

“Don’t leave me alone,” I begged. “If you’re gone no one will know I’m still here.”

For one fantastic moment, I thought she saw me. Her eyes lit up and she mouthed my name, looking expectant. But then her face fell, as it always did. She let out a heaving, heartbreaking sigh, and then she was gone, footsteps retreating down the staircase.

I chased them down the driveway. As far as I could go, until I hit the invisible CANYON VOICES

When you’re alive, your life is measured in firsts: first steps, first words, first kiss.

When you’re a ghost, your existence is nothing but nerves. I counted all the nevers without Elle. I’d never get to see her grow up. I’d never see her go to high school. Never listen to her talk to her parents about college. Never watch her face light up as she opened her first acceptance letter. She’d never be able to hear me again.

No one moved in for a long time. The house had a bad reputation in the neighborhood. They said, rightly, that it was haunted, that there were probably traces of drugs left over from the mother before she died, that they didn’t want to live somewhere the police had taken to just driving by because they’d been called there so many times.

Without the father, the yard fell back into ruin. The ivy grew wild again, the lawn was never cut, nor weeds tamed. The feeble front fence, hanging on for years by a few twigs, blew over in a strong wind, and was never replaced.

After a year I finally went inside. Dust an inch thick coated everything like snow.

They had left nothing behind, no broken toys or bits of trash. Nothing to indicate that a family had loved, died, and broken up here, or that at one point, a little girl who looked just like my wife had called me a good ghost and been my only friend.

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That was the year I stopped counting time.

Eventually, a new family moved in; a single mother of two. Though they didn’t stay long. She didn’t like the feel the place had, she said. It felt dark, ominous. Not the kind of place children should be raised.

It was a house in mourning, grieving the many lives lost here. This was not how it was supposed to be when I laid board upon board and built it from the ground up. This was not how my life was supposed to be, my art became my prison.

Kim shivered as if a draft had blown through, but the room was warm. “I won’t miss it,” she said, her eyes glancing around the spot where I sat like she was seeing something out of focus.

In time all the apartments were left vacant. I revel in the solitude, no living around to envy, and return to haunting the second floor.

I sit on the windowsill in the kitchen, looking out across the backyard. Then I hear something. The front door downstairs? Footsteps on the staircase? I turn towards the sound, and then a key turns in the lock. The door opens.

I watched as the winters got colder. The landlord packed up and moved down south, selling the building to another.

More tenants came and went, and came and went. And still, I lived on, in solitude, in silence. Never again would I try to speak.

I can’t believe my eyes. It’s Elle! Little Elle, though not so little anymore. There are fine lines around her eyes, which are steely, like the night her mother chased her around the house, all trace of optimistic youth gone. She’s wearing all black; pants, and a hooded jacket.

One spring, I noticed all the tenants preparing to move at the same time. I sat on the kitchen counter on the third floor, listening to them talking and packing.

She stands in the doorway, looks around, takes a deep breath. Leaves the door open.

“I guess they kicked everyone out,” said Laura, an art student. “Sold it for next to nothing, and whoever bought it is making everyone move.”

“Yeah, but they helped everyone find a place,” replied her roommate Kim. “And they gave us, like, four months. You just waited till the last minute.”

Laura shrugged, wrapping glassware in newspaper. “I don’t want to leave. I like it here.”

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She still can’t see me. But it is enough that I can see her.

“I promised myself I’d come back for you,” she says, and I know she’s talking to me. “You were my friend when I didn’t have anyone else, and I’m sorry I left you.

But I’m here now, and I think I know how to save you.”

It is then that I notice a can of gasoline in her hand.

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“I published a book,” she says as she unscrews the cap, begins dumping it everywhere. “I bought this place with the money and helped all the old tenants find new homes. Better homes.” I follow her from room to room. “Nobody deserves to live here. It’s a prison for both of us. So many bad memories…” she trails off, hands shaking.

I follow her downstairs. She dumps more gas down the hallway, along the stairs. I stand in the doorway as she goes outside, turns around, and looks me right in the eye.

“As long as this house stands, neither of us can be free.”

Then she lights a match and throws it.

The flames rise fast, engulfing me. I feel it burn me, but I welcome the pain. Pain letting me know I’m real, I can be hurt, I can live and die.

but still mine. Still, the girl who saw the good in everyone, who loved all creatures no matter how ugly and undeserving, who grew up too fast, saw far too much pain, and who heard my voice when not another soul could.

“Goodbye, Walter. I forgive you, Mom,” she says. A smile lights up her face before she turns and runs.

Sirens roar in the distance. I turn my face up to the sky, arms outstretched at my sides. All the noise, heat, dissipates. I’m rushing up, up, up through a tunnel, where at the end I hear my wife, laughing.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” she says, and smiles.

And as the house I built goes down in flames, I am free.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Abby Timmons, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 14

The fire spreads, the light blinding, orange and white against the night, so hot on my face. I look through the blaze, and there’s Elle, and she’s not little anymore,

CANYON VOICES

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FICTION | NICOLE FLODA

A Choice To Remember

By Nicole Floda

“This is your first time?”

Emma nods.

“Congratulations,” the administrator says. His face is expressionless.

“Should I sit down?” Emma’s gaze flickers to the wide leather seat in the middle of the room. It is the only object in the voting office.

“Yes, please.”

Emma removes her boots at the door as requested, padding over to the seat with bare feet. As she settles into the plush, she curdles her nose. It smells like antiseptic.

“Stay still,” orders the administrator. One of the walls is an interactive screen, and he runs the tip of his finger across its surface. It immediately glows to life, illuminating the dim room. The wires extending from the screen begin to glow as well, a mixture of blues and greens.

“Lean forward, please.”

Emma shivers as she bends at the waist.

The administrator suctions wires across the back of her bare neck, on her temples, and her wrists.

“All good. Lean back and place your head on the headrest.”

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Emma complies.

“Since this is your first time, I have to review the terms and conditions of the Online Elections Office aloud to you.”

“All right,” Emma sighs.

“You are placed into this computer simulation so we might supply you with confidential information. You then vote on governmental initiatives that would otherwise contain classified material, thereby allowing each citizen to participate fully in our democracy. After the simulation, the computer program is deleted, and you will retain no memory of what has transpired here. The only information that remains online is your vote- in favor, against, or abstinence. You can experience anywhere from 1 to 10 individual scenarios during your time with us, depending on the complexity of the proposed legislation. They will allow you to make an informed decision.”

Emma resists the urge to groan. He is acting as if she wasn’t taught this in school.

“This is your first simulation experience, so you will be guided by an automated assistant. It is a piece of code in the computer, partially AI. It will give you instructions to navigate the simulation.”

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“What if I don’t need an assistant?”

Emma asks impatiently. Her friend is waiting for her outside. She has places to be.

“Then you will be directly inserted into the first scenario. Your choice. This will be the only year the AI is there to assist you.”

“Because I’m eighteen.” It isn’t a question.

“Because it is your first time.”

“Okay.”

“The simulation can span up to one hour.

At the end of the hour, you have to make a choice. You may choose to abstain or to vote either yes or no on the proposed initiative. You will recall none of what you’re about to see. Do you consent to these terms?”

“Yes. I, uh, I do.”

“Close your eyes,” says the administrator.

And then Emma isn’t in the office anymore.

“Hup!” You shout. Your voice echoes across the field, amplified by long stretches of desert. The aching dunes are always conducive to barked orders.

Your cadets march alongside you, each step forged in awkward unison. They are still virgin warriors, untrained for longrange marches and civilian management.

You hear the shuffle of debrief documents in your backpack as you march on.

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The Afghan village, Chiras, was deserted weeks ago. The documents state it was once occupied by small farmers and poor families, but no more. This is a routine call to ensure the absence of rogue spies or stragglers. In the past four villages, you have encountered zero civilians.

The company expands as you stomp down the main dirt road through the village. The windows in the small, wooden houses are dark with the absence of life.

Your second approaches you, his split lip red and sunburned. “Lieutenant, should we separate into three groups? Cover more ground?”

“Yeah, Harrison, you take Gerald and Smith around the left flank-” But you do not finish your sentence.

“Cover me!” screams a cadet.

Flooding from the houses, previously forlorn caricatures of poverty, were dozens, hundreds of people. Your hand immediately flies to your gun, but something is off, and it stays your hand.

Your second has raised his gun and you hear the gunshot plow into the nearest wooden house. There are too many people, you are surrounded, butThey are civilians.

The bright colors that whipped your cadets into a frenzy are the yellows and reds of their ragged shirts, and they do not hold pistols or semi-automatics but knives, shovels, and rakes. The makeshift weapons are raised in their hands, but

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blades of steel and metal are nothing compared to the tiny powder bullets in your gun.

“Cadets!” You shout, your voice cracking over the roar of the crowd. “Kneel!”

You fall onto your knees, gun pointing straight down, and raise your free hand in the air. There is a sudden pause. The civilians circling you grow still, eyes narrowed. One by one, your cadets follow your lead, some willingly, some with bared teeth and tense shoulders.

The village falls silent.

You hear the harsh breathing of your second at your shoulder, and you do not move. One of your cadets hisses at the civilians, but with a sharp movement of your raised hand, they too lapse into silence.

And you wait.

The citizens stare down but seem to be gripped with uncertainty, their weapons lifted, gazes on the cadets’ guns- each aimed at the ground. The setting sun casts every civilian into shadow.

Then one steps back. You catch movement out of the corner of your eye, and before you can pinpoint the source each civilian is stepping backward, retreating. You watch as one woman with bloodshot eyes grabs the hand of a man young enough to be her son. They are desperate and smart enough to know when they’ve been given a second chance.

You let your gun fall from your grasp and raise both hands, rising to your feet.

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Immediately, your people follow. With hands in the air and only the sound of labored breathing, your company retreats from the village up the path from which they came. You look back a final time and watch sunlight shimmer over the white walls of their huts before the sun dips below the dunes, and the village disappears into the darkness.

Emma gasps, jerking up in her chair.

Instead of being surrounded by desert, she is now in a narrow office behind a desk overloaded with loose papers.

Sitting on the other side is a woman with thick glasses resting on her bulbous nose.

“How are you?” the stranger asks as if she has been sitting like this for a while, shuffling the files in front of her. Emma looks around.

“What is this?”

“You’re in the OEO, the Online Elections Office. Don’t worry, you’re still in the simulation. Since this is your first time voting, we are an automated program here to help you navigate the simulation and answer any questions you might have. Your heart rate spiked so you were automatically rerouted here.”

“What the hell just happened to me?”

Emma demands.

“Back in Chiras? That was your first scenario.”

“But why was I in the desert? Who were those people?”

“You were placed into the recovered memories of a recently deceased

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Lieutenant Colonel from our 9th Division.”

“Who is dead now?”

“She saved a hundred and two civilian lives in Chiras. Two days after that memory took place, she was killed in a renegade attack.” Goosebumps prickle Emma’s arms. She was just inside a dead woman’s mind.

“Each scenario is a memory- a firsthand account of who the proposed legislation will affect if it does or does not gain approval from the American people.” The woman folds her hands across the desk, narrows her eyes. “We have another scenario for you if you’re ready.”

Emma wants to mourn the Lieutenant’s death, wants to reconcile the vivid memory now burned in her mind of that day in Chiras with the fact that she was never actually there. But she has only an hour in the simulation.

“I’m ready.”

There is a quiet hum in the room. You adjust your headphones quickly before returning your hands to the controllers.

Any wrong move could result in swift retribution.

Your office chair is balanced on three wheels, and you think abstractly that was a careless decision. If you push back with your legs, you’ll lose your grip on the controller, and then everyone loses.

“Incoming message for the Strike Commander.” A professional, brisk voice through your headphones. “The target is

CANYON VOICES

located at 51° 28′ 38″ N. There’s headwind at 12 kilometers per hour, due east. Please adjust accordingly.”

“Roger,” you respond and run your thumb over the acceleration short-stick.

The drone inclines perilously to the left, and in the video broadcast over the big screen, your view shifts from a saturated orange desert to a Middle Eastern skyline.

“Here’s your coffee,” comes a whisper, and your intern sets a mug next to the controller.

You look up at her- she has beautiful eyes. “Thank you.”

She smiles at you before retreating from the control room, and you can’t stop thinking about that smile, even as further instructions leak through your headphones. Your break is coming up soon. Once you eliminate the enemy combatants, you’ll be able to punch out.

Perhaps your intern will ask for her break at the same time. Maybe you can go to lunch together.

“Target is shifting locations. Accelerate UAV speed by ten kilometers per hour.”

You flick the appropriate lever on the switchboard and a red light beams on above the screen. The room is unusually silent, empty of the murmurs that often accompany the execution of an enemy combatant. The target is not high-profile, from what you could gather from the sparse information you were provided.

No wonder no one stuck around before lunch to watch the show.

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The screen shows the sprawl of a city blanketed in darkness. You press down on a pedal below the table that switches the lens into night vision, your foot jerking in pain. You sprained it last month on a ski trip and it tends to act up when it is raining outside. You wonder if you should get it checked and make a mental note to call your doctor.

“Building insight. Please stand by for further instructions,” says the voice. You pause the drone in the air, tapping the fingers of your free hand on the cool metal switchboard. Maybe you should ask the intern if she would like to accompany you to lunch, or maybe that is too forward.

“Descend to 49° 28′ 10″ N,” the polite voice intones. You punch in the new coordinates and take one last glance at the camera. It is pointing directly at a black wall. Just behind it, vague heat signatures glow red with life. You avert your eyes.

“Initiate missile.”

You release your index finger from the trigger.

There is no sound, no further analytical input. Only visuals. You do not glance at the screen, beginning your count.

1… 2… 3… 4… 5.

Five seconds to assess the damage, to register any remaining heat signatures.

“Target eliminated. Prepare for departure.”

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You decide you will wait and see if your intern is on their lunch break before you punch out.

There is no intermission between scenarios this time. Only the blink of an eye passes as Emma returns to herself.

But something is different.

The air tastes like rain, and a cool breeze nudges a tear across her cheek. Emma lifts her hand hesitantly and rubs it away.

She is not in the memory of another anymore; the scene is too familiar…

She is standing in the middle of a cemetery, the grass contemptuously green and vivid against the worn gray tombstones. Mist coalesces around the giant oak trees that dot the field.

Hammered into their trunks are memorials to the soldiers buried here.

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, and beloved! He is God’s child, as Leonard is, and they reside now, in Heaven together…” The liturgy rises and falls, but Emma hardly hears it. Her hands are trembling so violently that she stuffs them into her pockets to quell the tremors. Her father’s funeral. A memory dredged from so long ago that she thought it had disappeared completely.

“This is all bullshit,” says her aunt, standing at her shoulder, teeth bared at the line of soldiers beside Leonard’s coffin. “If they dinna abandon Leo in that place before it crumbled to the goddamn ground, we would’n be even be here. They should’n be allowed to ev’n come.”

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Emma presses her lips together as she did years ago, to hold back the flood of words that nearly burst from her chest.

Accusatory, aimless, irrelevant. They wouldn’t bring her father back.

“I ought’a go tell ’em, don’tcha think?

Tell ’em to leave where they ain’t wanted.”

Emma can smell the alcohol on her breath. She doesn’t watch as her aunt stomps over to the front of the funeral, as she dissolves into a screaming stranger.

Emma can’t push back the tears, and then she is running through the fields of the cemetery, and maybe if she runs far enough she can forget this ever happened…

“Emma? Awaken. You are still in the simulation. You have successfully completed the final scenario.”

Emma is slower to rise this time, and her whole body is shaking. She is back in the narrow office with the businesswoman, the AI assistant. “We would like to debrief you.”

Emma cannot bring herself to respond.

When she says nothing, the woman proceeds.

“The U.S. Federal Government is introducing an initiative to Congress next week, and that is what you are voting on today. It is a piece of legislation concerning the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in combat. The President is proposing that drones be harnessed in the U.S. effort to eradicate transnational terrorist organizations.”

CANYON VOICES

Emma finally finds her voice. “What does that have to do with my father?”

“Your father was a Navy SEAL. He worked as a counterinsurgent agent and often acted undercover executing enemies of the United States. With the approval of this legislation, drones would be used in place of Navy SEALS. We have reason to believe he would have survived his mission if such technology existed at the time.”

“He would still be alive?” Emma asks, the concept so foreign that she feels as though she will pass out.

“Yes. However, in opposition of the initiative, you entered the memory of a Strike Commander extrapolated a week ago. There were two children present in the room when the enemy combatant was located, and the Strike Commander fired anyway, as you witnessed. Both died in the attack. Since he accomplished his mission, he will not be reprimanded for the mistake, and will continue on as Strike Commander.”

“What are you saying?” Emma manages.

Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth.

“We are showing you all sides of the potential implications of the bill, but it is, in the end, your choice to decide if you approve or disagree. That is the legislation you are voting on today.”

“What about the first memory?”

“The first Lieutenant saved a hundred lives through her quick judgment. It is far more difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate a situation when you can only Issue 15

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see it through a screen. It is likely the civilians would not have survived if, instead of being surveyed by a company of soldiers, they had been subject to a drone strike.”

Emma clutches at her stomach. She feels as if she is going to vomit. “How am I supposed to vote on that? We lose either way.”

The AI does not empathize. It stares at her. “The law is blatant in this matter: we must show both the arguments of those who proposed the bill and its opposition.

The choice lies with you.”

Emma glances down, and for the first time, she notices three buttons on the desk. The first is green, and scrawled across the top is the word YES. The second is bright red and reads NO. The third is gray, showing only the word ABSTAIN. “What if I abstain?” Emma asks frantically. She is sweating despite the coolness of the room.

“Then your vote will not be counted either way.”

“All of that would have been for nothing,” Emma translates, face paling.

“You have thirty seconds to decide. Then the hour is up.”

Emma stares down at the buttons and all she can hear is her heart slamming in her chest. She thinks of the Lieutenant, the relief on the faces of the citizens when the Lieutenant dropped into the sand to

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kneel, and of those in the crowd, some no more than fifteen years old.

She thinks of the arrogant Strike Commander, entirely undisturbed by the murders of two children, and she thinks she should vote NO, but her father — “Five seconds,” says the AI. Emma sucks in a breath, feeling tears well in her eyes, and how could she condemn anyone to grow up without a fatherShe slams her hand down.

“Welcome back.” The voice is disembodied. It floats in the air for a moment before Emma opens her eyes.

“Ow,” she murmurs. She feels as though she just ran a marathon, and her heart is pounding in her chest.

“Must’ve been a rough decision,” the administrator says. He is standing above Emma, hands on his hips, eyes light.

Bored. “You were thrashing all over the place.”

“I was?”

The administrator nods. Emma moves to get up before she remembers the wires attaching her to the bed. The administrator begins to remove them with swift efficiency.

“I’ve been here for an hour?”

“Yep, quite a long one it was too. Most people make their decision after twenty minutes or so.”

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Emma frowns. That feels wrong to her.

“And I never get to know what I voted for?”

Then, in an uncharacteristic display of goodwill, the administrator asks, “Got any plans for the rest of the day?”

“Sometimes they’ll release the scenarios to the public a few years after the vote because the information isn’t classified anymore, but for the most part, no. Just know your vote is in the system now.”

“Nah,” Emma says, shrugging. “I’ll probably go over to my friend’s house and hang out for a while, then start packing.

We’re heading down to Mexico tomorrow for Spring Break.”

“That’s fine, I guess.” Emma rises from the chair, legs unsteady at first. She wonders at the stiffness in her hands, flexing them at her sides as she crosses the room and pulls her shoes back on.

“Okay, well, have fun on your trip.”

“Thanks,” Emma says, but she is already checking her phone for new messages, and she doesn’t look up again as she walks out the door.

“Thanks for coming in. The U.S. Government appreciates your participation.”

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Nicole Floda, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 15

CANYON VOICES

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FICTION | JESSE CLARK

A Silver Lining, in the Death of Stars

By Jesse Clark

The red lights are only making the pain worse. It is an immense, earthshattering pain, in my midsection and in my head. I try to move, but I can't; I try to speak, but I can't do that either. It hurts too much, and my voice obeys me no more than do my joints or my muscles or my bones or my mind.

And yet still there is movement. I can feel myself being lifted up and placed on something – a bed, maybe, or - no.

A gurney.

“Alright!” one of the EMTs says, and several others then roll me into the back of an ambulance and climb in behind me.

But I'm already fading fast, and feeling an inexplicable heat, by the time those doors are shut.

One EMT, a blonde woman, shoots me a look, just as I'm slipping away, and says aloud, “Wait. Wait, I think I know... *

* *

*

“...we're made of that stuff, right?”

I turned around. There was a woman there, redhaired and about my age, give or take, and she was alarmingly

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beautiful. But how long she'd been staring at the exhibit alongside me I had no idea.

“I'm sorry?”

“I said ‘you know we're made of that stuff, right’?” She nodded at the museum wall, which depicted in detail the births and life cycle and deaths of stars. I pursed my lips.

“We’re... made of stars?”

“Yep. Isn't it awesome?” She stepped up beside me and moved her arm across the diagram as she spoke. “I just watched a documentary about it last night. Stars are just fusion factories held together by their own gravity. They start off fusing hydrogen to helium, and then they keep going on and on, fusing heavier and heavier elements until they're fusing the heaviest stuff. Then they exhaust their fuel and collapse under their own weight, and they blow off their outer layers and pretty much shower the galaxy with all these random elements, some of which are eventually used to create life.”

“Huh.”

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“Yeah. I’m Robin, by the way.” She extended her hand, and I shook it.

too, and blinding lights, and a cooling down of that monstrous heat.

“Uh, hey. Brian. Nice to meet you.” There was an awkward pause before I said, “Alright, I got one for you. If you replaced the sun with a black hole, what would happen?”

One of the paramedics is looking me over.

Then he looks to another colleague - the blonde woman - and he shakes his head, slowly.

“Depends on its mass.”

“Nope! The answer is - drumroll please nothing. I mean everything would get dark and cold, but we wouldn't fall in.

Earth’s orbit would remain entirely unaffected.”

“IF the black hole had the same mass as the sun.”

“What?”

“What you said would only be true if the black hole in question happened to have the same mass as the sun. Which it wouldn't because the sun isn't massive enough to collapse into a black hole.”

“Oh. Crap.”

“Yep. Me one, you zero. Sorry, pal.”

"Alright,” I said. “You're on. Whoever gets the most points by closing time buys drinks.”

She smiled at that and punched me in the shoulder, just light enough not to sting.

“Alright, loser. Come...” *

* *

*

“...on,” the EMT says. There is a flurry of activity around me, and there are voices,

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“This one’s gone, Rachel.”

But she continues running tests, running diagnostics, placing a soft hand on my arm in case I'm awake enough to appreciate the comfort. I am. Barely. But I'm fading fast, and that heat is coming right on back as I do.

“Not yet he's not,” she says. There's pain in her voice that she does her fruitless best to conceal. “I already lost one earlier, Todd. I'm not losing...” *

* *

*

“... another one!” Robin said, and I laughed and agreed and we rushed to the back of the line.

“See? Told you you'd like Ferris Wheels.

Can't believe you've never been on one before today.”

She shrugged. “Never thought they were as extreme as roller coasters, so I wasn’t interested.”

“Well they’re not supposed to be ‘extreme.’ Ferris Wheels are for all the parents waiting on their kids and sick people trying to relax their stomachs so they don’t puke funnel cake all over the pavement.”

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“And adorable young couples, apparently.” And just then we were waved into the next seat. We sat ourselves down, and moments later the great wheel began to groan and protest and, finally, to turn; it dragged our cart around its underside and then lifted it up, up, up to the top of its crest, where we could see the whole city at twilight, and the ships in the harbor that were backlit red with the setting sun, and the clouds that were lined at their tops with just a little bit of starlight. Robin snuggled up next to me and put her head on my shoulder, and I put my arm around her waist. For a moment then I could've sworn the empty seat in front of us moved on its own and furrowed my brow. But then Robin spoke.

what's happened. But it hurts. Dammit, does it hurt, almost as much as that rushing heat, and the effort is further disrupted when the ambulance hits a bump in the road and I nearly spill out of the gurney. But Rachel puts her steadying hand on my chest and says, “Hang in there, Brian. We're almost...” *

* *

*

“...there!” Robin pointed at the interstate ramp, and I took the turn and put St. Thomas Vineyard away in the rearview.

“Still can't believe Mason got married,” I said. “He’s only known that girl for what, a year? Less?”

Robin shrugged. “They were in love.”

“Thank you for being here with me,” she said. I didn't respond with words; I just kissed her on the head and held her tight, as the Wheel began taking us... *

* *

*

“...down on the eighteen hundred block of Gardersdale,” one of the EMTs says.

“Yeah. Yeah. Another one, I know. Hell of a night, isn't it?”

“They hardly knew each other! They don't know if whatever they're feeling is genuine, life-long love, or just new relationship googley-eyes that hasn't worn off yet. I guarantee it - and I'll put money on this - they'll be done within a year. Just watch.”

“You don't know that,” she said. There was a brief pause, and then she added, “We’ve been dating for two years.”

The conversation is muffled again in short order. I drift in and out, and there is a flurry of sound and lights and movement. But the jostling of the room and the sound of an engine tell me we're still in the ambulance.

“So?”

The other paramedics, for their part, continue running tests and checking my vitals, and as they work I try to remember

"You haven't thought about it? At all?”

CANYON VOICES

“So... how far off do you think we are?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. Haven’t really thought about it.”

“I mean of course I’ve thought about it. I just... I don't know if we're ready, you

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know?” I looked over at her, but she just stared out there at the rain with her chin in her palm. So I continued. “Think about it like this: people prepare their whole lives for jobs, right? They start going to school as soon as they can talk, and they're not done till they're in their twenties, and it's all so they can get a piece of paper that says ‘hey, hire me, I’m smart enough to work.’ But marriage?

Nobody trains for that. People just hook up and say, ‘hey we're twenty-five or twenty-eight, you're cute, I'm cute. Let's spend thirty thousand dollars on a giant ceremony and then be glorified roommates for five years until we're both fat and hate each other and get divorced because neither one of us knew or cared how much work this thing would require.”

in the window, and the little tear that welled up in the corner of her eye said more than words ever could.

There was a longer pause then, before she said, with a degree of seriousness I wasn’t in the least bit prepared for, “Is that where you think we're headed?

‘Glorified roommates?’”

“Robin, wait!” I grabbed her lightly by the arm. It was slick with rainwater.

“Talk to me. Please?”

Quickly I calculated an avenue of retreat. But I calculated wrong. “No! Not you,” I said. “Not us. I mean most people, you know? Most people just dive in and either get divorced or stick it out till someone gets heart disease. The divorce rate is more than fifty percent now in the US. But the ‘I-don’t-love-you-anymore’ rate? Shit, that's probably close to ninety by the time everyone hits middle age. I just want to make sure you're the right person, you know?”

If ever there were words I wish I could've taken back, it were those twelve.

She said nothing, but I saw her reflection CANYON VOICES

“Listen, I... that came out wrong. I just meant-” “Can you drop me off at my car, please?”

"I thought you wanted to come over-?”

“I don't feel good. Please?”

And we drove in silence for a while, as the rain picked up its pace and fell in sheets and in torrents. After another twenty minutes, I made the turn onto my street and parked, and once I did she got out without so much as a glance and walked across the road to her own car. I ran to follow.

“What do you want?”

I blinked. “I want you to talk to me. I just s-” “No. I mean with us. Where do you want this to go?”

"Where do I want this to go? I want to be with you! Listen, I didn't mean to imply that - that I don't want that. I just want us to be smart about it. You know?”

"Well, maybe love isn't something you can calculate on a spreadsheet, Brian!”

She was shouting over the cacophony of the storm. “Maybe it's just this thing you feel, you know? And maybe it doesn't make any logical sense. Maybe it's not

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supposed to. But that's part of what makes it special; it's an adventure; it's a ‘jump off a cliff with me’ type of thing.

And yeah, sure. Not everyone survives the fall, I guess. But if you find the right person, then -”

“Good-bye, Brian.” She kissed me on the cheek and rubbed the back of her hand down it. And then she turned and got in her Civic, and drove off until I couldn't see her taillights at all through the pouring of the ...

“A ‘jump off the cliff with me’ type of adventure? Come on, Robin! We're not writing up a dating website profile here; this is real life! There are kids involved, and finances, and house buying, and mortgages and all that shit! Not every day is some cute little romance comedy.

This is half your life we're talking about.

Two-thirds, even. Okay? All I meant was that you have to be prepared for it. I just-”

*

“I thought we were prepared.”

“What do you mean?”

She dug through her purse for a moment and then held up a ring that was brilliant even when covered in the rain. I felt my heart skip at least a full beat.

“Is that, um-” “It was my mom’s,” she said. “She gave it to me before she died. She said, ‘find your partner in crime, Robin. Find someone who'll sweep you off your feet.

And jump off a cliff with you.’” There was a pause before she added, “And at the time she said it I thought I knew exactly who that person was.”

I tried for a moment, but I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that there was no combination of words in the English language that could be strung together to right this ship.

CANYON VOICES

* *

*

“...rain’s comin’ down hard,” another of the EMTs said. “Careful when you unload him.”

There were grunts of acknowledgment, and then the back of the ambulance flew open and the sound of the storm utterly exploded into it; I felt the rush of wind and the rain pelting my skin in sheets, and together they helped a bit with the oncoming heat that still I couldn't place.

And then I felt movement. The gurney dipped and hit the pavement while the paramedics held me tight to its form. And then there were shouts, and lights, and running feet, and then the hospital door... *

* *

*

‘Open?!” I shouted. The man behind the counter shot me a look, so I shouted it again, over the sound of rainfall and through the glass. “I said, are you open?!”

And then he pointed at the sign saying the opposite and went back to reading.

But I wasn't taking no for an answer; I dug out my wallet and pulled a twenty from the fold and slapped it flat up against the glass. Within seconds the paper was soaked with rainwater. But it

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got his attention, and once he saw me there, he took pity on my plight, and the door clicked and whirred and slid open.

“Make it quick, man.”

“I know, I know. I will. Thank you so much.” I ran down the aisles and then, true to my word, made it back to the counter in less than a minute. The man put down his book and processed the sale.

“Date night?” He said, bagging the card after the flowers. I smiled a bit.

“Something like that.” And then I thanked him and ran back out to my car, and got inside, and took out the card and scribbled on its inner sleeve the words, ‘Jump off a cliff ... *

* *

*

“...with me, with me!” A doctor running alongside the cart motioned to some nurses in the hall, and they ran to follow.

He turns to the EMTs. “Is he stable?”

“He’s slipping. Heart rate’s falling, breathing slowing. Not good. Mumbled something about being too hot earlier, but if anything his temperature’s too low.” Someone shows the doctor a chart.

He reads it as he runs, and his face is grim.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s ...” *

* *

CANYON VOICES

*

“...move!” I shout at the car I'm passing.

“Just a little rain, assholes.” But it wasn't. It was a lot of rain. Sheets and buckets and torrents of it, in fact; it’d long since turned the dirt to mud, and it swept up against my windshield like ocean surf, and the road was slick with little rivers of it that ran on down past the pebbles. I was going far, far too fast for such conditions. But I didn't... *

* *

*

“...care about that,” the doctor said. “I just want to get his fluids up. Rachel!”

The woman from the ambulance runs up and discusses my condition in harsh whispers with the doctor. As I fade, and as the heat floods on back in, it becomes impossible to hear what they're saying.

But it's abundantly clear from the body language that she hasn't yet given up . . . *

* *

*

‘...hope for a reunion with these guys?’

‘Well, Bolan and Snake say they’re against it, entirely. So that doesn't bode well for fans. But look what happened with-’ I switched the radio off and then wrapped both hands around the wheel with such force the knuckles turned white on the grip. The car hit seventy miles per hour. Seventy-five. Seventynine. The windshield wipers were flying, but they weren't going fast enough.

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Suddenly I saw things in the middle of the road, and I slammed my foot on the brakes; The car jolted and shuddered and fought for traction with the pavement, and I felt the tires squeal and the metal of the car grind in... *

* *

*

“...protest.”

“I don't care if he wants to protest!” the doctor snaps back. “You tell him to wait in the lobby like everyone else!”

The nurse accepts her orders and heads back out into the hallway. “I'm sorry, sir,” she says. “You can't see him until-” “Until what?! That's my son in there!

That's my son! That's-” and then there's a scuffle of feet, and more shouts as a security guard drags my father from the wing. Rachel pauses as she hears the shouts, and then her eyes well up a bit with tears, and she looks at my face and appears to realize something. But she doesn't say what. The shouts continue, but they fade. And so do I. And in comes the heat as I do.

the car slammed to a halt. Both the officer and I sighed in relief, and then he approached my window and tapped the glass with his knuckle. I lowered it.

I shouted over the rain, “I'm sorry, sir!

Roads are crazy out here. You okay?”

He ignored the question. “I'm gonna need you to sit here for a bit, okay?” He said. “Just until the accident’s cleared up.”

“Accident?”

“It’s bad.” He nodded in the direction of the wreckage, and then he said again, “Just sit tight! We’ll wave you over when there's an open lane.” And then he ran off into the storm.

I scanned the scene. There was a man on the side of the road, I saw, sitting on the pavement with a poncho for the rainfall and his head in his hands. His SUV was totaled; the front end was bent and twisted and hideously mangled.

“That's my son!” Dad says. “That's my boy! Let me see my boy! Stop! Please …!”

But the other car was in far, far worse shape than that. I squinted hard and could only make out panels of white amidst charred black chunks of metal and the force of the rain. But it was enough.

*

It was a Civic.

* *

*

“...stop!” The police officer had both hands up as my car barreled towards him. “Stop! Stop the car!”

Finally, there was a jolt and a shudder as the tires gained control at last, and

CANYON VOICES

Oh, God. Oh, God, no. No, no, no.

I got out of the car and left the door hanging open in the rain, and then I ran forward, at least until the officer caught sight of me and ran back over and grabbed me by the shoulders.

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“Hey!” He said. “I told you to wait in the car! What're you-” “ROBIN!!” I shouted over him. “ROBIN!” And then I saw it; a fleeting glimpse of movement, a white sheet flipped on a gurney. A strand of red hair fell from the right side and hung there as the EMTs carted away the body.

“ROBIN!” I screamed. “That's my girl!

That's my girl!” The officer was confused and stunned and did the only thing he could think to do - drag me back to my car.

“No! Stop!” I was inconsolable but in no shape at all to resist. “Stop, please!

That's my girl! Let me see my girl!

Please, stop!”

One of the EMTs, covered in blood from the waist up, turned to look at the spectacle. But then someone shouted her name. *

* *

*

“Rachel!” The doctor says. “You with us, or what? Let's go!”

She blinks as she stares at me, and then says, “Uh, yeah. Sorry. I just realized; this guy was-” “Just get the charcoal, please? We don't have time.”

And she does; she runs off to fetch exactly that. And then I feel a hideously invasive sensation – a tube is being placed in my nose, and then I feel it falling down, into

CANYON VOICES

my throat. I'm too weak to gag, but I somehow manage to clench my fist. A nurse sees the movement, and he holds me down to steady me.

“Whoa, whoa...” *

* *

*

“...Whoa, whoa, you okay, man?” My roommate stumbled back as I threw open the door. I charged past him.

“You're comin’ in hot!” He said again.

“You good, bro?”

But I ignored him. I went to the bathroom, and I leaned up against the sink for a long moment, and I grabbed my temples and set my jaw and sobbed without a sound; aching, wracking, heaving sobs. I heard a knock. ”Hey, man,” he said. “You good, dude?

Anything I can like, get for you? Or-?”

“I'm fine,” I managed. It wasn't convincing in the slightest, but I didn't care. I opened up my phone. There was a text from Robin there, from this morning.

It read, ‘I love you,’ and they were all at once the most beautiful and the most painful words I'd ever read. ‘I love you.’

I love you, too. I'm coming. Hang on, baby. I'm coming.

Then I backed out, and found my dad in the contacts list, and typed, ‘I love you, Dad.’

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Moments later I got a response: ‘I love you too, son! You okay?’

But I ignored it, and then I threw open the cupboard, and I grabbed an old... *

* *

*

But Rachel hears it. She moves to my side, and she holds my head, and says, in soft enough a whisper that only I can hear the words, “Don't follow her, Brian. Don't follow her. Please, Jesus. I need him here.

I need this win.”

But the doctor is incredulous. “Well. That remains to be seen, now, doesn't it?”

Then he turns to the door. “Rach-”

But I begin to fade all the same. One by one, as the spikes on the EKG slow to sporadic pulses, I see the nurses turn to each other and shake their heads. One by one by one, that is, until there is only a trembling Rachel there, and she's holding on for me tight enough for everyone in the room.

And she pushes it open with her elbow before he finishes. “I got it, I got it. I'm here.”

“Call it,” the doctor says, just as the darkness swirls in and I feel like I’m starting to fall away.

“Alright!” He says. “Fingers crossed, people. Let's see if we can't save a psycho!”

The conversation carries on as I pass.

“...bottle of pills,” a nurse said.

“Swallowed the whole thing. Lucky his roommate called it in when he did.”

There are isolated chuckles. Rachel, though, almost snaps at her superior for the insult, but then someone says, “Here we go!”

And then there is thick, wretched black stuff funneling down that tube and down into my throat. I'm almost desperate enough, but not quite strong enough, to resist it. I can feel it sliding, and hitting bottom, and pumping, and pulsing. My heart rate is erratic; my breathing is erratic; my ability to comprehend the situation is every bit as erratic. I struggle as much as I can against the restraints, but all my effort and all my strength of arms musters up not more than the faintest whimper.

CANYON VOICES

“Two thirty-two AM,” one nurse says.

But I can hear Rachel screaming in protest - “No! He's not gone! There's still time, there's still time to save him, there's still...”

But she's wrong. I'm already gone. Her voice, and her face - those things are behind me as I pass. They're fading away into the darkness that's consuming me, and swallowing me whole, and throwing me to the winds.

And just when the magnitude of the situation dawns on me - then comes the heat. There are monstrous amounts of it.

It rips and tears and scorches and scalds and had I the ability to scream out or even to breathe I would've done so until my throat was hoarse. But then there is a new pain. A different pain.

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A hand reaches out of the blackness, and it grabs my left-side forearm with such mighty force that the resulting pain eclipses that of the heat, and the nails of that hand rip right through the flesh. And then I’m being pulled, and there is a rushing wind. It is cool and refreshing and beautiful, and suddenly I'm somewhere else entirely. *

* *

*

I blinked. The darkness was gone, and the heat with it, and that sensation of being devoured. Instead, those things had been replaced with starlit clouds as far off in every direction as the eye could see. But my arm stung like hell all the same. I looked at it. There were nail-marks, I saw. Four deep cuts beneath the inner wrist and a fifth on the side, in the shape of a hand. They bled a bit. And then I heard an all too familiar voice.

“You okay?”

I stood up, slowly, and I turned, holding my stinging arm while I did it, and said, “Robin. Robin, w-what was that? That darkness? And the heat, and th-” “It’s where you would’ve spent your eternity, Brian, had I not pulled you out.”

I had no words other than the weakest, “Thanks.”

“You know,” she said, holding her own arm. “Suicide’s not exactly what I meant by ‘jumping off a cliff.”

CANYON VOICES

I blinked again and took a long, deep breath. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t think things through.”

“Not sure you fully realize how much of an understatement that is.”

“Well, maybe I don’t. But you know what?

I'd do it again, Robin. I’m serious.”

She nearly rolled her eyes, but I doubled down on the sentiment.

“What I said? Out there on my street? I'm sorry. I mean it, I’m sorry. You were right. Love isn't about taxes or headaches or just tolerating each other until we’re seventy. It's like your mom said. It's about sweeping your girl off her feet. It's about jumping over cliffs with someone, and not knowing where you'll land, and not caring, as long as you get there together. And if this is where we land, wherever this is, I'm okay with that.” And I leaned in for a kiss.

But she stopped me with her hand before it landed, and I opened my eyes.

“I can tell you've been working on that speech for a while,” she said.

“Over and over again In my head, in the car, until... until I got to the scene of the wreck.” I looked at the ground, and then back up at her. “And I realized, right then, that if you left the earth itself then I would, too. So here I a-” “I was wrong, too.” She cut me off.

“W-what do you mean?”

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“About love. I was wrong. My mother was wrong. It's not just about crap you see in romcoms and greeting cards, Brian.”

Again, I blinked. “I know that! I know, it's - it's something you feel in your heart; that defies logic and reason. Not something you can put on a spreadsheet.

Like you said earlier.

She sighed a bit, and then said, “Can I show you something?”

“Uh, yeah! Yeah, okay. Sure.”

And then she took my hand, and Infinity rolled in and faded back out, and all of a sudden, we were somewhere else entirely.

“Are we -?”

“On the Ferris Wheel? Yep. Turn around.”

I did, and there we were, past Robin and past me, on the seat above and behind us.

I remembered it like yesterday; we were staring out at the whole city at twilight, and the ships in the harbor that were backlit red with the setting sun, and the clouds that were lined at their tops with just a little bit of starlight.

I rustled in my seat a bit and it moved, and past Me furrowed his brow when he saw it. But then past Robin said “Thank you for being here with me,” and got a kiss on the head.

“What do you see?” Robin said.

“Us. A year ago, and change. I remember that day like it was yesterday. Your mom

CANYON VOICES

had just died, so I took you here. To get your mind off things.”

“You did. That was the first day in months I'd felt truly safe and truly at peace. That was love.”

“I know it was. And I still love you, just the s-.”

“It's a kind of love,” she said, cutting me off again. “And it's absolutely beautiful when it lasts. But can I show you something else?”

“Uh... okay. Yeah.”

She took my hand again, and again Infinity itself rolled in and out like the tide, and then we were somewhere else.

The hospital, it looked like. St. Joseph’s.

“What do you see here?”

I looked around. Nurses running up and down the hallway. Doctors reviewing notes and talking to their patients.

“I don't know. A hospital.”

She nodded in the direction of a particular room. “Look in there.”

So I did. There was a woman on the cot.

She was emaciated and hairless and deathly frail, and the doctors inside were shutting off the last of the machines.

“A dying woman,” I said. “Looks like cancer.”

“Yep. And what about there?” looked down. There was a nurse crouched down in front of the same door and

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talking to a girl - eight or nine years old if I had to guess – in silly voices. The girl had been crying, but the nurse managed to make her smile a bit, even as her mother died on the other side of the door.

“Looks like a nurse comforting a little girl.”

“That's right,” Robin said. “And that little girl will remember that nurse for the rest of her life - even if they never meet again or so much as exchange names - as the lady who came to her in her darkest hour and made her smile.” She turned to me.

“That's love, too. Just as beautiful and just as previous as what we had.”

She said something pleasantly dismissive, and he nodded, and then leaned his head back up against the wall and closed his eyes.

“Wow. I uh, I had no idea he cared that much.”

“That's love, too, Brian. Would you do the same for him?” But she held out her hand again before I could answer, and I took it.

For a fourth time, Infinity blinked.

And then I was in the emergency room, looking down on myself. I was covered in vomit from the charcoal and the pills, but I was still, too.

“What's your point?”

Deathly still. Most of the nurses and the doctor were still walking out the door.

She didn't answer; she just stuck out her hand with a sad smile, and I took it.

Infinity faded in and back out a third time. And then we were in the waiting room.

But Rachel wasn't. She was crying openly now and making no effort to hide it. She reached for something. A needle, it looked like, or a syringe.

“See that?” Robin said. She pointed to the corner of the room, and I squinted.

“Oh hey!” I said. “That's Dylan! What's he doing here?”

“He called the ambulance when you didn't come out of the bathroom,” she said. “He knew something was wrong, and when they drove you off, he followed them here. Been standing there ever since, asking for information on you every time a nurse walks by. He's starting to annoy them.”

I watched my roommate for a bit, and sure enough, he grabbed a nurse and asked her a question that I couldn't hear.

CANYON VOICES

“What's she doing?”

“You'll see soon enough,” Robin said.

“But that there? That's also love.” She held out her hand once again and said, “One more.” And I took it.

And then we were in the parking lot of the same place. The rain was coming down harder than ever.

“Turn around,” Robin said. And I did.

And then I stopped; There were no words.

It was my father in his car. He was holding a Bible up to his chest with both hands, and he was crying in a way no

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child should ever have to see their father cry.

“And that there?” Robin said. “That's the kind of love that can move mountains.”

I put my hand up against his window. He didn't seem to notice.

“He can't see you, Brian. Not from there.”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Okay,” I said. “I get it. I messed up.”

And then she released my hand, and all of a sudden, we were back in the clouds again, under the stars. I wiped another tear before it fell.

“So now what? It's too late for me to go back down there. I'm already gone.”

Robin took another step forward, and without another word, she put her hand on my temple, and my eyes rolled back.

And then I saw it.

Rachel and I are on a beach. Our child is playing out in the surf, and the sun hits her hair just right, and for a moment it is made of gold.

And then the image fades, and another one takes its place.

A birthday party. I have silver hair at my temples. Rachel does too. But it doesn't matter. Our little girl is turning ten.

And then that image fades, too, and is replaced by another, and another, and another; each one yielding another moment where someone loved someone

CANYON VOICES

else enough for it to break through the clouds and be seen forever, even if the moment itself lasted only for a heartbeat.

Finally, there is an image of Rachel and myself on a porch as old as we are, and she holds my hand and says, “I'm glad you didn't follow her.”

And I say back, “Me too,” and I kiss her on the head.

And then Robin pulls back her hand, and again standing out there in the clouds together.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Time has nearly no meaning in this place. I've been here for a while, Brian, and yet the doctors haven't even left your operating room. Don't think too much about it. Just think about what you want.”

“That,” I said. “Was... was that my future?”

She shrugged again. “Could be. I don't know what you saw, and I don't need to know. Was it enough?”

I nodded, and she stepped forward again, and said “Then go and get it.”

“I'll miss you too much.”

“Well there's nothing wrong with missing someone,” she said. “That just means love lasted a little longer than what ignited it.

So, go ahead and miss me. You owe me that much. Feel the loss; stand up to the storm like a man, and memorize the pain, and learn it inside and out, and let it roll

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over you in waves and run its course. And then one day you'll wake up and realize you have scar-tissue where the skin used to be, and you'll be stronger than the grief ever was.”

“I can tell you've been working on that speech for a while.”

“Like I said. I've been here for a while.”

She said. “You're made up of the stars, kid. Now go light up the world.”

And she kissed me, one last time. And then she was... *

She took my hand and squeezed it. For a moment she paused when she saw a scar below the wrist that looked like the result of fingernails dragging through flesh. But then she dismissed it and said, “I am too.

And you'll get yours. Okay? I promise you will.”

I said, “I know.” And with that, she got up and left the room to go save someone else’s life, while I took out my phone, and opened up the most recent text, and hit reply.

‘Am now.’

* *

*

◼ ◼ ◼

For the original publication and information on author Jesse Clark, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 16

“...gone, Rachel. I’m not telling you ag-” But I shot upright before the doctor could finish the thought, and I gasped for air when I did and grabbed at my chest with more strength than I'd had in hours.

There was a needle in it; a bolt of life to the heart and Rachel broke down in tears when she saw me.

“Well,” the doctor said. “Welcome back to the land of the living, son. And Rachel?”

She turned around.

“Good work, kid. Made me proud.”

And he left, and she turned back to me and tried to hide a smile while she did it.

“Hey there. How’re you feeling?”

“Better than dead.” There was a pause before I added, “Hey. I'm glad you got your win.”

CANYON VOICES

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FICTION | ELIZABETH WALLACE

The White Light Package

By Elizabeth Wallace

I know the most difficult part of watching my own funeral will be seeing Mom cry; to watch her mourn her firstborn child – her only daughter. As difficult as it’ll be to witness though, I think it’ll be worth seeing my family and friends one last time. Searing each individual’s image into my brain to recall for all eternity or… well, I’m dead and I don’t really know how much longer I have at this ghostly level of consciousness. I don’t think it will last forever, but I don’t really know. I’ve never died before.

Anyway, the point is I’m not going to bypass the opportunity to see my loved ones again. Well, hopefully… Holy crap!

What if nobody shows up to my funeral? I hadn’t even thought of that.

Surely, mom will attend her own daughter’s funeral, right? I am her firstborn child and only daughter after all! Was. I was her firstborn and her only daughter. This is depressing. Maybe I should have chosen one of the other postlife packages offered at orientation. The old, bald guy at the desk recommended the Halo package, so I wouldn’t have to endure my own funeral. Of course, I just had to take the White Light option though, so I could snoop at my funeral to see who shows up and what they say.

Jeez, maybe I have already messed this

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up. I couldn’t get living right and now I’m already failing at death.

Oh, a car is pulling up! This is exciting! It doesn’t really look familiar. Who do I know… knew? Ugh, tenses. Whatever.

Who did I know that drives a gold Toyota Camry? Grandma? No, she doesn’t drive anymore. Someone is getting out… who the hell is that? That lady looks like my second-grade teacher Mrs. Michaelson, but younger and shorter, so I guess she doesn’t look like her that much. It is certainly nice of her to bring me that beautiful bouquet of flowers. What’s she doing? She’s walking the wrong way.

“Lady, my grave is over there!” I am shouting and pointing to nobody. Get it together, self! Why is she stopping at that random person’s grave?

Oh. I’m an insensitive idiot. Nobody will come to my funeral for sure. Was I this self-absorbed when I was alive or have I become this way since death? That nice Camry lady was clearly bringing a loved one an amazingly bright and colorful bunch of flowers to show respect and here I am harassing her for nothing.

Thank goodness she can’t actually see or hear me. Maybe I deserve an unattended funeral after all.

I’m not a bad person, I’m not a bad person, I’m not a bad person. I mean, I

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wasn’t a bad person. Shit, was I a bad person?

Moment of truth, the hearse is finally here. Oh phew, I recognize all those cars following it. The anticipation is killing me! Ugh, stupid puns. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle this. Why did I choose this godforsaken post-life package? I should’ve just taken the desk guy’s suggestion. This funeral is going to be the death of me. Oh, good grief…

I hate puns. I hate being kind of, sort of dead too. Why can’t I just be dead-dead?

Why am I dead, but very much conscious? I’m not visible or audible to anyone, so what’s the point? Uh oh, car doors are opening.

Am I nervous sweating? That is unreal! I shouldn’t have to put up with anxietyinduced perspiration in the afterlife. That should just be an automatic perk of dying; I no longer have to suffer stress sweat. Oh, there’s Graham! Oh… he looks way worse than I would have guessed.

Was he taking my death particularly bad?

I don’t know why he would. We were never close. It is Saturday afternoon; he should be watching college football with Devon and Seth. He should not be wearing a slightly-too-small gray suit at his sister’s funeral. We barely even spoke the last year and a half since he graduated from high school. Why does he look like he has never smiled in his entire life?

Maybe he’s sad because he has figured out that he’s now the oldest sibling of the Hudson children, which is a fact I am just now figuring out for myself. Poor, little brother... Oh man, funerals are too sad.

Nothing has happened yet and I already CANYON VOICES

want to crawl under a rock and hide until it’s over. I definitely chose the wrong package…

Black is an interesting color for a casket.

Aren’t they usually just wooden and brown? Am I making that up? Clearly, I haven’t been to very many funerals.

Maybe I just - oh, it’s starting.

“Welcome. We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of Eleanor Hudson,” he said. “We are also here to celebrate the short, but full life she led. Based on the number in attendance this afternoon, she clearly touched many lives. We will now allow individuals to come up to the podium and say a few words. I believe Trevor Hudson will start us off.”

I don’t recognize this pastor. He looks too young to even be a pastor. Maybe this is his first day. That is some terrible luck; he must have pulled the short straw. I picture a bunch of pastors standing around in a circle, pulling straws to see who will be the unlucky sucker that has to speak at some nobody’s funeral. I guess he delivered his lines well enough though.

Do they just have a basic template for all funerals with an “insert dead person’s name here” space? Like for the next funeral of a dead young person, he’ll just switch out Eleanor Hudson for Jack O’Brian or something? He looks like he would rather be anywhere else in the entire world as he leaves the podium to sit in a folding chair off to the side of the podium. Not that I can blame him. I kind of want to be anywhere else in the entire world and this shindig is for me…

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“I was ten years younger than Ellie, but that didn’t stop her from being my best friend.” Trev pauses to flatten the crinkled notebook paper on the podium.

He adjusts his glasses and continues, “I don’t need to tell you how special she was. If you’re here, you already know. I just want to share a story. It’s one of my all-time favorite memories of my sister.”

He looks up to make eye contact with his audience like we practiced for his English presentation this past fall. I love this kid.

I can’t help but smile at my baby brother looking handsome in his black suit and green bow tie. His hair is parted to the side and smoothed down like I had never seen it before. I just want to hug him.

“Now, you wouldn’t think a seventeenyear-old girl would be much into hanging out with her seven-year-old brother, but Ellie and I were inseparable for as long as I can remember. Every summer before she left for college, she babysat me while our parents were at work and Graham was away at basketball camp. Dad received a waffle iron for Father’s Day that year and Ellie was experimenting with different kinds of waffle batter when I walked into the kitchen one morning.

The kitchen smelled like pineapple, melted marshmallows, butterscotch, and strawberry jam. It was a weird combination. The waffles she made from those ingredients were pretty weird too.

Actually, the taste of the waffles was way worse than the smell. They were disgusting.” He pauses and looks up from his prepared speech to his solemn audience once again. A few ripples of quiet laughter roll through the crowd.

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“That afternoon we went to our favorite bookstore, Fauley’s. If you don’t know, it is a small store tucked in a corner of the mall next to Lawrence Diamonds. We spent two hours at Fauley’s before I got hungry and asked if I could go get us something from the food court,” he says, and then leans over and lowers his voice to mock-whisper into the microphone, “The two bites of pineapple butterscotch waffle weren’t doing much for me.” He straightened up and continues, “I got her lunch order for Two Dragons and left her to finish browsing and to purchase her books.”

I remember the day he was talking about.

I knew as soon as he mentioned the waffles, but I only now recall what was about to happen. I was scared out of my mind when I couldn’t find him.

“Turned out, Two Dragons had closed down,” he said, “so I went across the food court to grab us each a slice of pizza. I figured pizza was a pretty safe bet as a second choice. The line was crazy long, but I already knew what she would order, so I stayed. She panicked when she couldn’t find me. Even when she looked around the whole food court, she didn’t see me in the pizza line because I was so much shorter than the rest of the people standing around me. When I finally walked up behind her with the pizza slices, she whirled around with the most worried expression I had ever seen on her face. She yelled, ‘I lost you! I can’t believe I lost you!’ She pulled me in for a hug so quickly that I dropped our pizza.”

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bright on these people, but the mood of the group is anything but bright. I realize that is expected at a funeral, but it is depressing the shit out of me.

“I told you this was one of my all-time favorite memories of my sister,” he says as he scans the crowd. “If you have been paying attention, you’re probably wondering what is so great about it. The point of this day, to me, isn’t that I ate part of a gross waffle and scared the crap out of my sister. This day is so special because I had a sister who actually volunteered to spend summers with me and who was thoughtful enough to make breakfast for us. I had a sister that read to me so much when I was little; we developed a shared love of books. I had a sister that loved me so much that when she thought for even a minute that she had lost me she searched the entire vicinity, about ready to call mall security.

I was lucky I had Ellie as my sister and I never once questioned that after this particular day.”

I’m so proud of this kid. He made it to the last sentence before getting choked up.

He folds up his notebook paper and walks with his head down back to his seat. I’d give anything to hug him right now. I’m not sure if non-corporeal beings can cry, but if they can, that’s what I’m doing right now.

Uh oh. Why is mom getting up? Oh no, oh no, oh no. I’m pretty sure I’m sweating again. I know my mother. I know she is about to read a poem that will make me cry - or “cry” or whatever I’m currently doing – even worse than before.

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My poor mother closes her tear-rimmed eyes and sighs before reciting, in the softest voice, I have ever heard from her.

“You were the sweetest baby I ever met, And your love I will never forget. Little Eleanor Mae, my eldest child, Twirling in circles, brown curls flow wild. My loving daughter, beautiful and grown, But where are you now? Are you all alone? I miss my girl every day, every minute. My heart is breaking, bit by bit. You were the sweetest baby I ever met, And your love I will never forget.”

Dammit, mom. Of course, she reads it beautifully with only a constant glimmer of tears that never actually fell while I’m over here ugly crying and making all kinds of gross snot noises, which shouldn’t even be possible.

I think the pastor just said something, but I’m concentrating on burning the image of mom sitting between her boys into my mind. Plus, the racket I’m making with my sniffles pretty much drowns that newbie out.

I’m feeling kind of a lull in the action; everyone is just staring at that jet-black casket. I'm noticing now that it seems very shiny. Does someone clean the outside of caskets before burial? That seems slightly pointless. I mean, I know they want it to look presentable for the ceremony, but it is about to be buried in the dirt forever. Oh jeez, you all are going to stand around it now, really? This is too much pressure. I don’t know why I’m feeling pressure to… perform. The top of the casket is closed. And also, I’m dead.

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Okay, now the pastor is definitely speaking. Is he whispering? Is this amateur whispering? “Everyone has to be able to hear you, man! Sir? Father?

Pastor sir? Speak up please!” Oh no, it’s almost over, they’re throwing dirt on me.

Is it getting darker in here? What the fuck is happening? Why can’t I hear what’s going on? They are lowering my body and I can’t hear what anyone is saying! And why the hell is it getting darker? I’m definitely sweating again, dammit!

Am I dying again? Or am I dying for real now? I think I’m dying for real. Oh fuck.

Am I dead-dead when they finish lowering my casket? I need to see my mom again.

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I might drown in my own anxiety sweat before they finish lowering me if they don’t hurry up. What am I saying? I don’t want them to hurry up. “I take that back, guys! Go easy on that button or crank or whatever you’re using.” I can’t hear anything anymore and I can barely see. I think that’s her! “Mom!” Oh my gosh!

She actually looked up. I’m not over there, but we’ll pretend she can hear me.

Focus, Ellie! Remember Graham’s face, remember Trev’s face, and remember mom’s face. I can’t hear or see anymore, but I’ll never forget my fami-

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For the original publication and information on author Elizabeth Wallace, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 17

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Over the Rainbow and Other Places

By Noëlle D. Lilley

“The truth will set you free, but first it’ll hurt like hell.”

Crush #1: The Girl You Create To Be Something That She’s Not.

When you grow up with a single father, in a family of boys, you hear it all: everything from ghost stories and conspiracy theories to how to grow a mustache quicker or how to throw a good punch. But when it comes to relationships, my second-oldest brother, Giovanni, thinks he’s got it all figured out. I’m the youngest of four boys: Dario, Giovanni, Rafael, and then me. We’re all a little obnoxious, but Gio is by far the most self-indulgent.

This girl is frequently seen in malenarrated movies and novels and her sole purpose is almost always to assist the male protagonist’s character development (see: Annie Hall or 500 Days of Summer). You know the type— the Manic Pixie Dream Girl who’s magical, ridiculously hot, and unattainable who somehow changes the dude of the story in some irrevocable way before disappearing from his life.

According to Gio, because most guys crush on this kind of chick from afar, they never actually take the time to get to know her, preferring to instead build her up to be this impossibly perfect girl in their own mind. Once the dude actually gets to know Crush #1, he realizes that she isn’t necessarily what he thought she was and that no one could ever reach the standards he’d set for her. Whatever.

Gio has a theory that there are three different types of crushes in life, all of which play an important role in your development.

“Hear me out, Vin,” He had told me, leaning forward earnestly at the dinner table while I tried to think of a way out of the conversation. “Some just pass the time, some distract you, some smack you wide awake, some break your walls down to shambles and leave you wondering how you were ever so closed off in the first place.”

Gio is a Psychology major with a minor in rhetoric and consequently very into fauxdeep, rhetorical, Freudian bullshit. I support his theory on the crushes though.

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This crush for me was Maia Martinez, freshman year. She was MexicanAmerican, president of the school drama club, and absolutely bursting with ravenhaired gorgeousness. I went to every play, concert, recital, and musical the school had that year even Mama Mia, which is saying a lot. Eventually, I finally got the courage to stop lurking around the back

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of the theater and ask Maia out after one of their shows. We ended up going to a diner with the other kids from the show. I quickly realized that although she was just as beautiful and smart as I’d thought, we had little in common as she wanted to talk about nothing other than Broadway and Josh Groban. Her eyes almost popped out of her head when I told her I’d never seen Phantom of the Opera. I left politely soon after, paying for her untouched pancakes. We stayed friends though. Girls and I always do.

Crush #2: The Girl Who Is Your Friend You and this girl are initially just friends for whatever reason but eventually, you start to believe that you could be more than that. This belief is usually fuelled by misleading romantic comedies (see: When Harry Met Sally) and mixed signals. Gio says that this kind of girl is the best to crush on because you actually have a fighting chance. However, it can still go one of two ways: she might reciprocate your feelings or she might firmly but gently herd you back to the friend zone from whence you came. I have had several of these crushes from Desiree Johnson in fourth grade to Delilah Montgomery for most of middle school.

Crush #3: The Girl You Have No Chance With, Ever AVOID THIS GIRL AT ALL COSTS. This has typically been my mantra for Crush.

Crush #3. Unlike many of my friends, I have never seen the masochistic appeal in pining after a girl who doesn’t even know

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you exist, let alone is likely to let you put your tongue in her mouth. I have always preferred to comfortably stick to girls in my bracket (middle to upper social hierarchy) and usually fair pretty well. I may not be as talented as my brothers but we’ve all inherited what my dad calls the Barellies charm. Plus, the fact that they’re dating a Barellies tends to help their social mobility when we break up. My oldest brother, Dario, says that it’s because we’re Italian.

“Girls love wops.” He’d said, before ducking from a slap my grandma reached over to give him.

All of these qualities have provided me with an overall satisfying dating experience and I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit sneaking out of bedroom windows. And if you ask me, Gio takes relationships more seriously than he should. What’s the point in being young if you’re going to get bogged down by some chick whose name you probably won’t even remember in a few years? I’ve seen enough failed relationships, starting with my own parents, to know that love, if you can find it at all, is more trouble than it’s worth.

But I slipped up. I got careless and became like every hopeless, lovesick chump I ever made fun of in high school.

Jesus. Who knew that all this time I was just one kiss away from being Heathcliff and Romeo and Mr. Rochester? *

* *

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Sighing, I lean back in my seat. Rafael Barellies is many things but punctual has never been one of them.

I’m sitting in a stupid coffee shop waiting for my not-so-stupid brother who begged me to come down to the university on a Friday night of all nights so he could give me a stupid tour of his stupid university’s new building. I said “no” almost right away when he asked; I have my own friends and my own plans, neither of which involves following my third oldest brother around a university library. It’s the kind of college that’s cut off from the rest of the town, surrounded by forest and greenery, so it’s not even as though there are bars or clubs nearby.

Of course, he wanted to meet at some alternative coffee shop, the kind where hipsters who perform slam poetry in overalls and horn-rimmed glasses like to go because God forbid anyone catches them in a Starbucks. The kind Antoinette Fisher and I used to make fun of.

“I mean, seriously. What is up with all the chai tea lattes?”

“Right! Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned hot chocolate?”

“The other day I overheard someone describe Lolita as a love story. Seriously.”

“Kill me.”

But I came. I’d never tell him this but Raffy is one of the best people I know.

Raffy, who walked behind Michael Winston all the way home in sixth grade, covering his backside when he sat on a pudding cup and it looked like he’d CANYON VOICES

pooped himself. Raffy, who held Brittany Jackson’s hair back and rubbed her shoulders the night she got really drunk and threw up at Kyle Hugh’s New Years party. Raffy, who likes bubblegum and show tunes and still calls our grandma every day. He’s handsome too, like stupidly Teen Vogue Magazine handsome, but he’s so nice that you can’t even hate him for it. Jerk.

That being said, he’s not exactly the most exciting person. Raffy’s idea of a wild night involves Harry Potter, Crunch n Munch, and staying up past midnight.

This peak of nerdiness oddly reached new heights when Raff went away to college this fall. Don’t get me wrong—I love a little wizardry just as much as the next 16-year-old but visiting Hogwarts isn’t quite on my weekend to-do list.

But he’s my brother. So, I came.

I’m just starting to get pissed off when a girl plops down in the seat across from me despite my set up of the table, which deliberately broadcasts Please don’t sit here.

“Sorry, I’m saving a seat for—“ “—For your brother. Raffy. Well, the thing is he can’t come right now and he’s meeting us later because he’s got this really huge O-Chem test to study for but he asked me to let you know and occupy you until he’s all done. I’m Dorothy.”

All of this comes out sharp and eloquent, like a president delivering the State of the Union address.

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It takes me a minute to process what she’s said and once I finally do, all I can think of to say, stupidly, is, “As in over the rainbow?”

I don’t say, What’s O-Chem? or How do you know my brother? or Hey, I’m Vincent. No. As in over the rainbow?

Jesus.

Dorothy blinks and stares. Then blinks and stares some more.

“I guess so.”

I wince and start to apologize only she’s not upset or even listening. She’s standing up and swinging a leather bag across her body.

I could leave. I should leave. Raff isn’t even here and it’s not like I signed up to spend time with some random girl.

But she’s looking at me. She’s looking at me like a schoolteacher about to ease a child into a difficult lesson or a ten-yearold taking care of a puppy for the weekend. Her eyes are kind, kind, kind and green, green, green with specks of brown. And they remind me of someone.

I get up. I follow her out of the darkness of the coffee shop and into the light of campus.

I didn’t even get to finish my damn chai tea latte. Five freaking dollars. Jesus. *

* *

*

“Please tell me you’re kidding. Please.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

“I’m not. And stop cussing at me.”

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!”

“Nope.”

“You’re crazy. You really think cookies are better than cake?”

Dorothy laughs and throws her hands up in the air. I drop my head in exasperation.

“You may as well say you hate puppies!” I exclaim.

She rolls her eyes, “I didn’t say I hate cake. I just think cookies are better.” She shrugs, looking down at her nails. “I would take a sleeve of Oreos over a slice of cake any day.”

I sigh heavily and look away from her.

“You’re acting as though I just told you I was a serial killer.”

“Honestly, this is much worse.”

Dorothy smiles full on. It’s amazing what a smile can do to a person’s face. This girl completely transforms thanks to this eyecrinkling-eyebrow-raising-perfect-teethshowing grin. If only she’d just get rid of those dorky glasses... No wonder she’s friends with Raffy.

After stopping at her dorm (a girl’s dorm!!!!) to drop her stuff off, Dorothy had taken me out to the quad, blanket in tow. Her room was messy in a way that girl’s rooms always are: discarded outfits

“I’m not.”

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scattered, makeup left out, half-drunk water bottles littered across the floor.

Their college campus looks like it came straight out of a catalog or a film set, and I can almost understand why Raffy was so eager to get me down here. Huge oak trees stretch out across the lawns, providing shade to students sitting and studying and laughing and kissing beneath them. This is the kind of school that attracts rich kids, ones in Patagonia sweaters and Ugg boots even though it’s only September. We’re sitting on a patchwork Winnie The Pooh blanket (Winnie The Pooh, for Christ’s sake, is this girl twelve years old?) as I chastise her for her blasphemous taste in desserts.

“You know, you’re not very nice.”

“What?” I ask, looking over at her. She’s a mind reader, too? The smile, the laughter is gone. “Yes, I am. I’m totally nice.”

“Not really,” Dorothy replies.

I shift uncomfortably and focus on the blanket beneath me.

Niceness has always been my forte. I may not pass classes with flying colors like Raffy or bench press my weight like Dario, but my teachers always tell my parents that I’m Such A Nice Boy. I may not stay with every girl I date, but they always tell their friends that I’m Such A Nice Boy. “You’re only nice when you want something,” Dorothy continues. “As soon as you get that—or don’t get it, or better yet, someone tells you they don’t like cake—all that goes away.”

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I frown at her and start to wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. Who does she think she is? Some dopey girl with a dopey smile and dopey glasses.

“Hey, hold on a second, you don’t know me. You don’t know me at all.”

She shrugs again. “I know your type.

Everyone has a type.”

My head snaps up to look at her. “Type?

What do you mean by that? Did Raffy tell you about the theories?”

Dorothy looks back over at me, “Oh, God, not you too. What is it with you and your brothers and these theories? You two have received some poor advice.”

Crossing my arms, I glare at her again.

Gio may be pretentious, but he’s ours to clown, no one else’s. “You just said you knew my ‘type.’ Clearly you believe in some kind of theory, too.”

“I mean, sure. People tend to follow similar patterns, but they don’t fit in boxes. Haven’t you ever connected with someone in a way that didn’t follow your little road map?”

Our eyes meet and I can feel something building and she’s looking at me with those eyes again. But I say nothing. It’s too much, too soon. I lay back on the grass.

Dorothy is quiet now. So, I start to think, as I always do, about Antoinette Fisher.

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Antoinette Fisher with her long hair and her brown eyes that are the exact shade of the chocolate milk she threw in my face last month.

Antoinette Fisher with her tie-dye shirts and her yoga pants and her big mouth that always says exactly what’s on her mind, no matter how much it hurts my feelings. Antoinette Fisher who leaves my sheets smelling like cinnamon gum and baby lotion long after she’s tiptoed out of my room at 5 a.m. Antoinette who drinks milkshakes like they’re good for her and watches both the History Channel and reality shows with equal reverence.

Antoinette who’s seen The Wizard of Oz a million times and still manages to cry at the end. Stupid, stupid Antoinette whose stupid kisses and stupid jokes have had my head spinning since May. Needless to say, my friends were surprised to find out I dumped her a week before school started over email.

“Dude,” Trevor Martin had said. “Are you crazy?”

Missy Collins had stared at me like she didn’t recognize me. Donald Tanner just shook his head.

But what they all didn't know was that Antoinette Fisher had told me she loved me.

I had to end it. That wasn’t what this was supposed to be. Nobody ever said anything about love. Jesus, we just both needed dates to Homecoming. I mean, was I seriously about to let myself become one of those lovesick losers just

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because some girl smiled like she was trying to hypnotize me and got all my jokes? No. If there’s one thing my mother taught me when she left my father to raise four sons on his own, it’s to never, ever give another person the power to break you.

I read somewhere once that losing a mother—whether through abandonment or death—is more traumatic than losing a father. You meet more single mothers than you meet single fathers, so it’s not that surprising when a man walks out on his family. But I never thought much about not having a mother. After all, I had my brothers and I had my dad. We had each other. Most of the time, my childhood felt like one big Boy Scouts sleepover or something. Honest. My dad is the kind of father who brings cupcakes for your entire class on your birthday, coaches your soccer team, volunteers as a chaperone on your field trips, and still makes time to help you with your homework at the end of the day. But how can a mother carry her children for nine months, watch her belly swell and grow, go through hours of pain to bring them into the world then decide they aren’t worth sticking around for? Jesus. Even mother polar bears stay with their young for two years.

I will not be the one who gets left behind.

I will not be my father.

When I saw Antoinette on the first day of school in the caf, she headed right toward me.

Her eyes had looked shiny like she was going to cry, but her voice came out

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strong and clear. “What is your problem?”

I still remember the last time I kissed Antoinette.

The scowl on her face was gone and replaced by a mix of concern and sadness.

“Sometimes I look at you and I can’t believe you’re real,” She had said.

“Nothing,” I said into my soup.

It was a warm August night, the kind that tells you summer is ending but gives you a hope that it might somehow stretch on just a little bit longer. School was set to start in three weeks. We’d been seeing each other all summer and no one thought it would last, my antirelationship reputation preceding me and all. The car was dead quiet and she had squeezed my hand, waiting for a response.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“Just tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” She demanded.

I shrugged. “I just wasn’t feeling it anymore.”

“You love me?” I asked.

I never got the stain out of my shirt.

She nodded.

I open my eyes and Dorothy is lying back down now, too.

“Say it again.”

“What are you thinking about?” She asks, looking straight up at the sky.

Jesus, she’s nosy. I hesitate. There’s no reason for me to tell her. I barely know her. “Someone.”

“Which ‘crush’ was she?”

Should’ve known better.

Dorothy chuckles to herself. There goes that smile, again. The glasses are gone.

That’s when I lean over and kiss her.

Quick and soft and all sugary sweet. I don’t know why I do it or how long it lasts but I know that I miss it at soon as she pulls away.

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“I love you.”

People say “love” all the time. About our favorite shows, favorite movies to our pets, to our family, to our friends. But when someone else says it, someone you’ve dreamt about, someone who’s been at the end of every birthday candle you’ve blown out or every penny you’ve tossed or every shooting star you’ve wished on, it changes. A warmth spreads through your whole body like a light at the end of a tunnel you want to follow forever.

I had let go of her hand and slid mine up to the back of her neck, bringing her to me. I’d closed my eyes and snaked my arm around her waist, pulling her so that she was practically in the driver's seat.

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“Vin.” She had mumbled against my lips.

“Vin, Vin, Vin.”

his are striking and elegant, mine are plainer, rounder.

I never liked my name much until I found out how it tastes when it’s sighed into my mouth.

I know this. I have accepted this. I never mind when girls breeze by me to get to him or when the shift in eye contact goes straight to him. I understand. In old home videos of us together, he is always looking at the camera and I am always looking at him.

I’d kissed her hard, letting my fingers get lost in her hair.

“I love you, too.”

And then I dumped her a week later. It’s September now but I still duck when I see her in the halls.

All I know is that now I can’t get Antoinette out of my mind.

And I know that as soon as I am pulled back to the present, I look up and Rafael Barellies is standing over Dorothy and I, backpack in tow with a look that I’ve never seen him give and words I’ve never heard him say.

“Um. What the fuck?”

Jesus. I’m never gonna find out what OChem is. *

* *

*

Raffy is staring down at us, his eyes shifting from me to Dorothy and back to me again, trying to place the blame.

People have told me all my life that I look exactly like Raffy, but I know it isn’t true.

Maybe a dimmed version—Raffy with the volume turned down. Our basic features are the same: same curly hair, same dark eyes, same olive skin that tans to a warm butterscotch in the summer. But where

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Dorothy sits up very suddenly. “Raf! Hey, we... we were just—“ Raffy drops his backpack very loudly and sits down in-between us.

“What are you guys doing?” He asks. He looks at Dorothy. “Dor, you were supposed to keep him company until I came back.”

That she did.

Dorothy throws her hands in the air. “I didn’t do anything!”

“That’s not what it looks like to me.”

“Raf,” I interject. “Calm down, okay? We were just joking around.”

Raffy turns his attention to me as if just remembering that I’m here.

When Raffy and I were little we used to communicate just by looking at each other. It used to drive our dad crazy how we could understand each other without saying a word. I look back at him now, willing my thoughts to project out to him like they used to. Who is this girl? Why are you so upset? Why didn’t you tell us that you had a girlfriend?

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Before I catch the bus back home, Dorothy slips a piece of paper to me. On it is an address and a time:4794 San Gorgonio Lane, Apt #34. 10 PM. Raffy doesn’t notice when she does this and I know he won’t like it. I’ve already spent more money in one day than I’d like on public transportation and the last bus back home leaves at 11 PM. Despite all this, a few hours later I somehow find myself waving dad goodbye, slipping out the backdoor, and hopping on the 9 PM bus between Tumbleweed and 2nd Street, all the while knowing this will end poorly. Jesus. *

* *

*

I severely misjudged Raffy’s college.

This school isn’t just full of rich prep kids.

As I look around the party, I see people of every clique, race, and background. There are quiet kids huddled together who look like they never go out and definitely never drink; overly-dressed girls in high heels, all texting and leaning against the walls and refusing to dance; show-offy frat dudes who are either performing a Satanic ritual or playing beer pong, kids in dreadlocks by the speakers arguing over what song to play next. Finally, I see Dorothy. She’s one of the few people actually dancing near the center of the room and surrounded by guys who look like they’re waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

“Hey!” She yells over the music. Her arms are waving wildly. “Come over here!”

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I squeeze my way through the crowd and she hands me a beer once I reach her.

Some guy is dancing behind her, his hands on her hips, rocking to the music with her. He glares at me like I’m a piece of shit someone dragged in across a new carpet.

“This is Big Mike!” Dorothy yells again, pointing at the guy behind her. He’s one of the many tall, frat guys at the party who looks like he has more muscles than brains and tells people his major is beer pong. What kind of name is Big Mike anyways?

The glasses are gone again, nothing but endless green eyes and specks of brown dancing in them. Dorothy is trying to get me to dance too, wiggling her hips and pulling on my arms. But I don’t want to dance. For some reason, maybe even for the first time, I want to talk. I want her to look at me like she did before and remind me of everything I’ve been missing.

“Can we go somewhere quiet?” I yell back.

Dorothy stops dancing. She looks warily up at me before nodding and untangling herself from Big Mike. He stares at me like he wants to punch me and I stare back even though he could probably kick my ass.

We walk out onto the balcony of the apartment and I slide the door closed behind us.

She faces me. I face her.

“I didn’t expect you to come tonight.”

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“Why not?”

She shrugs. I wait for her to say more but she doesn’t. She doesn’t look at me either.

All of the smiley flirtation from today is gone. Jesus, what am I doing here?

“What’s up with you and Raffy?” I ask dryly. If I’m here I may as well get some sense of clarity amidst the shit I’ve found myself in.

Dorothy frowns in no particular direction at all, “We’re friends.”

“That’s not what Raffy thinks.”

“Raffy thinks a lot of things.”

But I can’t let it go. “What I mean is that I think he likes you.”

She shrugs again. Dorothy turns away and leans against the railing, looking out into the forests that surround the school.

The green is gone and her eyes are dark as the night that sweeps out before us.

I realize I was wrong. There’s no brown in her eyes at all.

“Why did you even invite me here?” My voice raises now and despite myself, I actually care about the answer.

She looks at me now, glaring. “Look, don’t give me that. I was just supposed to show you a good time. Raffy told me your little sob story about getting dumped. I was just trying to cheer you up.”

someone’s just delivered the punch line to a joke that I didn’t know was being told.

“I don’t recall asking for a pity party from either of you. And for your information, I broke up with her.” Jesus. I hate how my voice sounds: whiny and pathetic.

Dorothy sighs, “It wasn’t my idea, OK? Don’t take it personally. It’s not like we were a real thing.”

“Well, yeah. But we have something, don’t we? I mean, there’s something there?”

She looks at me full on now. “Vinny, come on. You barely know me. I’m not one of you and your brother’s stupid theories.”

There have only been a select few times in my life where I have absolutely nothing to say. This is one of those times.

I stare blankly, wondering how the hell I ended up here, on an apartment balcony, at a college party, drunk, surrounded by strangers, pouring my heart out to a girl I’ve known for twelve hours. Jesus. Was it really all in my head?

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

We both look toward the balcony to see, of course, none other than Rafael Barellies.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Raffy.

“Raf—”

My face burns. Suddenly, everything makes sense. It all adds up. I feel like

“What are you doing here, Vincent?” He interrupts me, using my fill name, which

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he hasn’t called me in years. “Why aren’t you at home?”

never thought I’d say to another human being, let alone my favorite brother.

“I was just leaving,” I tell him. I push past them both and go back to the party.

I feel arms around my shoulders and somehow we’re pulled apart. Dorothy is in between us now, tears in her eyes, and her head swivels back and forth. I almost feel bad for her. This is much more than she bargained for.

Everything suddenly feels blurry, like I’ve turned a camera lens out of focus. I just want to go home.

“Come back here, Vin!” I turn around. Raffy’s voice has a harsh, angry quality to it that is as foreign to him as it is to me.

“Raffy, let me explain—” “Explain what? Why you’re out past your bedtime?”

I stare at him. “No. Explain why I’m doing better with a girl who doesn’t even give a shit about you.”

My dad told me once that anger increases strength. He said that when you experience sudden excitement or anger your brain releases adrenaline, which gives your body rapid energy and can power your muscles more effectively. I hadn’t paid much attention then—I was only trying to understand how Robin and Cyborg could possibly be holding off Slade for so long—but it all makes sense now when Raffy’s fist connects with my jaw.

The table tumbles over. Somebody shouts. We crash to the ground.

And then we are screaming terrible, terrible things at each other, things I

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But Raffy isn’t looking at her. He’s looking at me. Something has broken between us.

“Get out!” Dorothy shouts. “Both of you!

Please. Just get out!” *

* *

*

I am sitting on the curb. I am holding an ice pack to my eye, which I can already feel swelling. Rafael Barellies is sitting next to me with a Band-Aid across a split lip that will surely need stitches.

The world is at that quiet point in time where night creeps into day and all the sensible people have gone to bed. Behind us, the party rages on in the distance as we wait for an Uber that Raffy called twenty minutes ago. Dad always told us that nothing good ever happens after midnight.

I look over at Raffy. He’s huffing and puffing and trying to still look angry but the mask from earlier has fallen. He’s just Raffy now. Raffy who likes World of Warcraft and smoothies made with soymilk even though he’s not even lactose intolerant. Raffy with a busted lip and wearing a ripped shirt our grandma

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bought him, pouting like a puppy dog in a corner. Jesus, we’re pathetic.

That’s when I start to laugh. Not a chuckle either, a hysterical, falling over, belly laugh.

“What? What’s so funny?” Raffy asks.

He looks at me like I’m crazy. I try to respond but just end up laughing some more. A smile slowly creeps onto his face.

“I kissed her.”

He shrugs. “I just wanted you to feel better.”

“I did for a little bit. But not really.” I shake my head. “It’s not the same as the real thing.”

Raffy is quiet for a moment. “I always did like that Antoinette Fisher.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“What? What are you laughing at, you goof?” He pushes me. Not angry like before. But like my brother is back.

Raffy stands up and holds a hand out to me. I take it and he pulls me to my feet.

“Look at us, dude. What are we doing?

Fighting in parties, knocking over stuff.

“Screw this Uber. Let’s just go back to my dorm. I’ll drop you off in the morning.”

Who do we think we are? Rocky versus Apollo or some shit?”

We start walking.

Raffy starts to laugh, too. He shakes his head and pushes me again. “You got me good with that last swing. Who taught you how to fight like that?”

“Dario.”

“Freaking Dario. He never taught me how to fight.”

“That’s ‘cause you were too busy reading books.”

Raffy laughs and tosses an arm around my shoulder. We’re quiet for a while before I finally speak.

* *

*

Sometime later, Raffy says, “You know?

I’ve been thinking... I don’t know why we ever listened to Gio’s theories in the first place. He’s never even had a girlfriend.”

I laugh. I pull out my phone and click over to “Contacts.” One name stares back at me. A name that invokes brown eyes and a million other things that I can’t process. But I think I might be ready to try. And, for once, no theories even cross my mind.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Noëlle D. Lilley, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 18

“Why did you tell her to flirt with me?”

“I just asked her to be nice to you. I didn’t tell her to kiss you.”

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*

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The Frenchman

By Arthur Davis

In the stink of his cramped office at the west end of the prison compound, Dr. Phillip DuBarry reached a conclusion well before considering the possibility of Bernard Costa’s plea.

It was almost noon. The good doctor was hungry.

Even knowing that he would receive better rations than the rest of the prisoners was a modest comfort.

“I think my head is shrinking,” Costa repeated, unable to contain the racking fear that had plagued him since the discovery.

At first, he was grateful for what was only supposed to be a temporary confinement for the slander of his words on a night of too many parties, too much wine, too much temptation, and an inexcusable excess of drug-driven indiscretion.

“And, what do you think caused your condition?”

Dr. Philip DuBarry asked with practiced indifference, as he had treated every prisoner over the last eighteen months of his internment.

A Frenchman and self-ordained patriot exiled to Devil’s Island because of his uncontained slander against Napoleon III, DuBarry scratched out Costa’s statement in his file, if only to occupy time and space.

“I don’t know.”

When the court expanded upon their initial verdict and condemned DuBarry for behavior, not just against the state but against society itself, any hope of returning to his life, his medical practice, his family, and of regaining his reputation, disappeared.

Devil’s Island was as distant a location as one could get from the salons of Paris, a tract of misery much closer to the heart of pure darkness than anything civilized man had come upon in

“But you must have some idea?”

“No,” Costa answered.

the whole of the 19th century.

DuBarry leafed through Bernard Costa’s file. The forty-eight-year-old had been convicted five times of petty thievery. The fact that he believed his head was shrinking was further evidence of what DuBarry assumed were serious emotional imbalances.

DuBarry got up, came around the desk, set the faint tips of his fingers over the imperfections of the man’s skull, as would any trained phrenologist.

“You seem fine.”

“No?”

“I knew you would say that.”

“But I’m concerned. Yes, concerned. Very concerned.”

“Did you think I would simply agree with you?”

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“I had really hoped you would tell me my head wasn’t shrinking.”

“How are you feeling today?” DuBarry asked, a week later.

“For me to be certain of that, I would have to undertake extensive measurements of the spherical contours and irregularities and compare those measurements over subsequent visits.”

“Much better, very much better, sir.”

“According to our last conversation you complained that your head was shrinking?”

“Oh, no. I was mistaken. I hadn’t slept well in days, and I think I was imagining it all. I apologize, sir. I didn’t mean to take up your valuable time.”

“Please sir, I need your help.”

DuBarry knew that what he had said, the loftysounding description of the seasoned phrenologist, which he was not, was a total fabrication, though not as great an infamy as Devil’s Island itself, a festering, forty-squarekilometer penal cesspool on the coast of French Guinea which had once been a haven for lepers.

“I see.”

“I wasn’t myself. You know, the wretched heat. It can make you believe what isn’t.”

The year was 1870—the beginning of the Third French Republic. Devil’s Island was nineteen years old and already an institution that brought fear to the most hardened French criminal.

Later that night, DuBarry returned to his meager quarters and examined the tips of his fingers as if they held a secret he had yet to decipher. Was the man’s head slightly smaller than he had anticipated? He rolled over onto his back, jerking back his feet when he felt something soft and slimy slithering across his ankle.

The jungle heat and humidity and the cloistering fauna produced so many crawling and flying vermin there was no place to turn for safety or comfort.

When it wasn’t raining, it was boiling hot. The air clung like a mat over your lungs. There were days when it was impossible to breathe. And he had 1,286 days left in the sanctuary for France’s most egregious offenders, those with a history of unrelenting violent and antisocial behavior.

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DuBarry had been allowed to take a few old medical texts with him as part of his baggage. It was made clear that when he was settled in he would be responsible for looking after the sick and malnourished, the insane, the beaten and abused—and those ravaged by others whose temperament, disposition, size, and authority made that kind of exploitation inevitable.

The physician that DuBarry replaced was a notorious drunk who routinely offered medical treatment in return for sexual favors.

DuBarry had found several references in his texts to phrenology and its social importance and understood that the science attempted to define human characteristics or faculties by interpreting the shape, contour, and irregularities of the skull.

“Well, let me have another look.”

This time DuBarry’s examination was careful and methodical, taking measurements, making notes, trying to recall his readings in comparative anatomy. To reach any medical conclusion would be a difficult task, and impossible to demonstrate

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unless rigorous observations were well documented.

The next day under the boiling sun DuBarry watched a withered Bernard Costa complete the perimeter walk around the prison compound, a daily ritual required of all inmates.

Then there was the issue of the thread that Costa had first mentioned to prove his claim with an urgent, almost compelling, certainty. If it was indeed hanging in his cell it was easy enough to remove and examine. “Ridiculous,” DuBarry said, recounting their first encounter.

Costa had made a knot near each end of a small piece of thread and when the thread was wrapped around his head the knots touched.

After weeks of repeated measurements, Costa claimed that the knots were slowly overlapping, confirming his suspicion that his head was shrinking. After the twenty circuits, Costa staggered back to his quarters, a cell with an iron bed outfitted with ankle manacles, a small bucket, and a single window that looked out onto a jungle teeming with crawling beasts that ravaged his skin, clawed at his feet, and were eager to lay their eggs in his mouth.

During DuBarry’s brief internment on Devil’s Island, he had heard stories that two men had been beheaded. The inmates had been lined up and forced to watch the ceremony as a warning that even the slightest infraction could result in the most brutal of consequences. The last man, a character named Marcil, was serving fifteen years for molesting a young boy then killing the child’s inattentive father with a brick.

When it was discovered that Marcil had a habit of talking to himself, someone reported that he was plotting against the State.

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Shaking and crying, denouncing his captors and their God, he was bound and gagged and led up the rickety scaffold that inhabited the center of the prison compound. He was blindfolded and thrown to his knees. The Commandant, a perversion of unrelenting brutality, described the offense in great and compelling detail, the threat that Marcil posed to the liberty of the State, the resulting decree of guilt and the punishment, and in the same breath, the blade was released. It slipped down the wooden tracks and landed on the back of Marcil’s sun-scarred neck, but did not venture more than a few millimeters beneath his skin.

Upon inspection, it was found that the wooden guide tracks were swollen and warped from the humidity. The tracks were greased, the blade raised, and the lanyard yanked back again.

No one in the crowd of anxious onlookers moved, spoke, or flinched. Staring at the tall wooden structure set precisely in the middle of the prison compound, DuBarry believed the Commandant wouldn’t take kindly to an inmate making false claims, or the new physician entertaining the possibility of such an outrageous fabrication. *

* *

*

“How’ve you been feeling this week?” DuBarry asked a more contrite Bernard Costa.

“I sleep and wake and walk the compound, eat, and go back to sleep,” Costa said, as if half expecting a lashing, or being sold to tribesman along the coast for their amusement.

“So, let’s see what we have,” DuBarry said, revisiting Costa’s file, which was now thicker, as DuBarry had become preoccupied with the possibility, if even remote, that his research

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might lead to a meaningful medical discovery and a way to have his sentence commuted and return home to his medical career, a hero.

“This does?” DuBarry said, retracing his steps.

The Commandant might also consider the reward for assisting, indeed encouraging, the discovery of such a possibility, and returning to Paris with his famous physician.

He finally wiped his hands on a filthy rag and stepped away from Costa. “Interesting.”

“No, no. Sorry. I was mistaken.”

“What is?”

“Though I don’t think it’s anything unusual.”

“I am fine. Feeling quite better today.”

“Have you ever had any hallucinations, dreams, nightmares, and dizziness?” DuBarry asked and went on to elaborate on a wide range of symptoms.

Costa turned around to face DuBarry from behind. “How can you tell?” “I’ve read the works of the famous Viennese physician, Dr. Gall, an eminent scientist in his own right. He is considered the father of phrenology.”

“I believe so,” Costa answered, agreeably, too many.

“I don’t understand.”

“Excellent. Then we shall continue,” DuBarry said, and deftly traced the contours of the man’s frontal and parietal lobes, the irregular patch of swelling behind both ears and what felt like six to eight-millimeter granular eruptions covering the crest of his skull under Costa’s oily mat of hair.

DuBarry drew imaginary contour lines across the top of the skull, indicating the site of extreme emotions, foot trouble, sexual dysfunction, tremors, creative thinking, and abusive behavior.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” DuBarry said and continued. “Phrenology is the study of the anatomy and contours of the human skull, which it is believed will reveal a person’s disposition, characteristics, and talents.”

“And whether they’re going mad?”

“If one is skilled in reading these contours, it may well reveal a range of pathological and psychological irregularities.”

“Then you don’t think I’ve made this up?”

“What’s that?”

“If you have, you will come to regret your deceit.”

“I am examining the back of your head for deviations from standard formations.”

“Formations?”

“The faculties of human behavior are localized in the brain, and more developed functions are evidenced by enlarged brain areas that show up as irregularities in the external conformation of the human skull.”

“But the knots? They overlap now. It was only a feeling at first when I touched my head, it just felt different,” Costa answered clearly, and with conviction.

That evening, everyone was marched into the central compound to witness a prisoner who had already served twelve of his fifteen-year sentence lashed into unconsciousness, a strident rebuke

“It hurts.”

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for taking too long to complete the compound walk.

virulent infestations, abnormalities, and marring.

DuBarry knew that he could not engineer the facts or corrupt the measurements.

“I believe there is a growing hesitancy—a timidity if you will—in your brain to continuing to contract as we knew it has already committed itself to. I, therefore, have decided that rendering some meaningful assistance would be of value.”

The thing he felt might buy him additional time, if there was any possibility of substantiating Costa’s fears, was to shave the head of the prisoner making observation and measurement more accurate. By pretending to read directly from one of his medical texts DuBarry convinced the Commandant, who was drunk enough that night, that finding malformations in Bernard Costa’s skull could be the basis for greater achievements in fighting crime itself.

On DuBarry’s orders, Costa was removed from his quarters and dragged to the platform housing the guillotine before a gathering of startled prisoners.

“Why? What is this?” Costa screamed, pleading for his life when he realized where he was being taken. “Oh God, I am a terrible person. I’ve lied and cheated and stolen, and hurt others for reasons that now fail me.” *

*

“Now that we have exposed the full dimensions of your skull we’re going to try a more aggressive approach to your remedying your condition,” Philip DuBarry announced with renewed vigor when Costa arrived the following afternoon.

Costa’s skull was filthy, scarred with pustular growths, scabs that would never heal in the stinking heat, epidermal malformations DuBarry couldn’t identify, and unremarkable manifestations he expected he would find in most other inmates, though with somewhat less

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“Help, to ensure that it does not retreat upon its earlier manifestation,” DuBarry explained.

“I see.”

Two prisoners were being escorted along a narrow path past the doctor’s window. One of the guards spoke of the woman he had been with the night before while the other boasted that he had been with her the night before that.

“I suspect that your head, having shrunk, is now struggling to reverse its own natural evolution,” DuBarry said. He placed the belt around the crown of Costa’s head and inserted a foot-long stick he had found to cinch the makeshift tourniquet. The leather belt was quite old and around five or six centimeters wide.

* *

“My brain?” Costa said, realizing that it was the first time he had heard the word or noticed a belt coiled on the good doctor’s desk.

“What are you going to do?”

“Your head had begun a shrinking process which, if not completed, may threaten your own survival. Using this technique, something I read about in my research, we’re merely assisting the inevitable.”

“I see.”

“In fact, I wish I had learned of this treatment sooner.”

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“Of course.”

“Now, let’s begin,” DuBarry noted, and with a twist of the wooden stick, the leather belt creaked alive and tightened around the crown of Bernard Costa’s defenseless skull.

At first, Costa was relaxed and resigned to the experiment. But as the doctor twisted the tourniquet, listing over and over how important it was to capture and maintain the body’s natural momentum toward diminishment, Costa became concerned, and pulled away.

“This may be painful at first until your head begins to shrink of its own accord.”

“I understand.”

“This treatment is essential if we’re going to prove your claim.”

DuBarry was careful not to get too close as Costa struggled to keep his hands at his sides and not thrash about. DuBarry knew that if in any way he was touched, even grazed, it could be viewed as an assault and would have to be reported to the Commandant.

“Based on my research into the brain function and modern phrenology, this treatment was designed to stem the tide of cranial expansion and return the patient’s skull to its initially reduced state. From that point, the skull would grow ever smaller until it could no longer support the mechanics of the body upon which it is affixed.”

DuBarry had practiced this response several times over until he had constructed a conclusive and compelling argument that would support his prognosis, one he would use to galvanize the press upon his return to Paris, and which supported the experimental and imaginative

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treatment he had prescribed to save Bernard Costa’s life, which he had now convinced himself was in peril.

When Costa returned for the second session several days later he was greeted with a surprise.

“What’s that?”

“A solution that will relax you and allow the process to continue at a greater pace,” DuBarry said.

Costa drank the half-filled glass of cloudy, bittertasting liquid. The opiate DuBarry had concocted from the small inventory of less powerful drugs he had already been siphoning off for his own personal use, struck with profound effect on Costa’s central nervous system, compromising his senses, focus, and resistance.

“This is as it should be,” DuBarry said to himself, as Costa stared absently out the clinic’s window.

Philip DuBarry tied the belt around the forehead, inserted the stick, and gave the tourniquet one full twist, cinching the band to where it had been at the end of their last session.

Bernard Costa remained in a haze of indifference.

DuBarry gave it a quarter turn, watching the edge of the belt make a reddening indentation in the thin skin around the man’s skull.

Costa was unaware of what was happening, which gave his doctor greater license than he might have expected. At the end of the session, Costa had to be carried back to his cell by two inmates under the watch of a suspicious guard.

“I was born a fool, and will die a fool,” he moaned, reaching up, searching the wall for the thread that had cursed him from the beginning.

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Picking it off its familiar perch, he shredded the frail filament and tossed it out into the darkness.

Tomorrow, he decided, he would confess the fabrication, if only to end the torture and accept the punishment. By now, most of the inmates had differing views on the possibility that one of them had a shrinking head. They were both critical and curious, disbelieving, and envious.

DuBarry concluded one more session, even with the opiate-induced stupor to insulate Costa from the excruciating pain, and the man’s head might split open like a ripe melon, instead of returning to its fully diminished state.

and above his eyes, it was impossible to tell where his face began and the destruction ended.

On the second day of this accelerated treatment, the guards carried a withered Bernard Costa into DuBarry’s office. DuBarry sat behind his desk, leather belt in hand.

The air had become stagnant. The smell of decay and excrement, even when the ocean’s breeze tried to cleanse the land, smothered the island in a suffocating stench.

“What are you waiting for?”

DuBarry continued twisting the leather strap in his hands. Just sitting, staring, and twisting, as though the belt was alive and undulating with expectation.

It could also so irritate the skull chamber, its internal and surrounding tissue, that it could swell up and make all future treatment impossible.

DuBarry stopped by Costa’s cell. while the other inmates were walking the compound and, ignoring Costa’s unconscious state searched as he could. As he suspected, there was no length of string to be found anywhere.

He pushed back his chair, got up and came around his desk, unfolded the loop, and lifted it into place, but was stopped short of tightening the strap by Bernard Costa’s hand.

“Lower,” Bernard Costa pleaded softly.

By the time the guards roused Costa the next day the flesh covering his skull was so swollen and welted it looked like he was wearing a hat that had been pressed down over his ears and brow.

DuBarry was shocked by the touch of another man’s hand, and one who was so far beneath his station. He knew that what Bernard Costa had done could cost him his life.

DuBarry decided to accelerate the frequency and severity of the treatments or, he believed, he would soon be unmasked. The guards lashed Costa to a chair as DuBarry administered a stronger dose of the narcotic.

“Please,” Costa coaxed again, his frail grasp locked on the doctor’s wrist.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” DuBarry said, rushing through the procedure and in doing so further vexing Costa’s skull chamber and surrounding tissue.

The guards dragged Costa back to his cell, his head so swollen with renting tears in his scalp CANYON VOICES

“I don’t understand?”

“Yes, you do.”

Philip DuBarry had no sense of where and when he might be released from the clutch of the madness that he had first encouraged, then embraced, then perverted for his own advancement. The scope and breadth of his infamy had caught up with him in the night and

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racked him awake, exposing the fraud he had become from the once nobility of his medical calling and dedication.

guards stood curiously around the prostrate man.

DuBarry loosened the leather strap and let it drop around Costa’s throat, first noticing the darkened blue welts on the man’s shoulders and back, as if he had been violently restrained and held down from the rear.

DuBarry tightened the belt around Costa’s throat, then hesitated. “Please, you must save me.”

The good doctor inserted the wooded stick between leather and neck, tightened the belt, and raised his glare to the far wall of his office. A large cockroach was making its way along the corner at a brisk pace as if it were being chased.

The cockroach quickly disappeared into a crevice in the corner. There was nothing else moving insight. The sounds of muffled voices coming from the compound outside his window were a faint reminder of where he was and how far he had fallen.

Almost as an afterthought, DuBarry’s focus drifted back to the figure in front of him. Bernard Costa’s head was slumped forward. There were no visible signs of life. DuBarry released the leather cuff from the inmate’s neck just as a guard passed his window.

The guard barked an obscenity, raced into the office, and pushed DuBarry aside. Another guard followed and restrained the good doctor who was, at that moment, grateful for the intervention.

As though no one had already noticed the fractured skull and accompanying wounds to Bernard Costa’s head over the last few days, the

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A brief inquiry was held the next day. Official records were kept. DuBarry stood, his hands bound, his mouth gagged so he wouldn’t be able to cloud the proceedings.

After a careful and thorough investigation, the Commandant came to the determination that Phillip DuBarry had, on his own and without administrative permission and with malicious intent, carried out what they called “sick and insidious experiments” that might impugn the integrity of those dedicated professionals whose purpose it was to minister to and protect, the less fortunate.

DuBarry spent the rest of the day face-down in his cell, unable to recall how many times he had been beaten and abused by the guards who felt he had violated their trust.

As dawn broke the next morning, DuBarry was taken into the center of the compound, lifted to the platform, administered last rites after the verdict was read for the courtyard full of prisoners. DuBarry was shoved to his knees, his head overhung the slot at the base of the guillotine. *

* *

*

Among the crowd of prisoners lined up to witness justice was one curious glare from a man sitting in a chair carried onto the grass and held erect by a pair of guards. Costa watched as the executioner yanked down on the lanyard.

DuBarry’s head fell from the base of the guillotine into the red-stained basked below as Bernard Costa could be heard, “I am a simple

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Frenchman condemned to an evil beyond imagination.”

A year to the day and an hour later, and only partially recuperated, though not from the permanent cranial and facial disfigurement, and blindness in his right eye, Bernard Costa’s sentence was commuted. Another year passed until he could be heard, “I remain an innocent man who has suffered and, with God’s grace, I will find a way to redeem myself,” as his wheelchair was maneuvered down the gangplank into a waiting throng of reporters at the port of Marseilles.

◼ ◼ ◼

For the original publication and information on author Arthur Davis, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 19

CANYON VOICES

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CANYON VOICES

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Rawhiti

By Max Johansson-Pugh

I The small hours of the morning were an impenetrable darkness, a darkness so thick it’s a wonder first light managed to cut through it. Crashing waves and a strong sea breeze is all that could be heard on the island. The smell of the sea wafted throughout the island, equal parts because of the sea’s strength and small size of the island. The island is home to fishermen who live in shacks and take advantage of the lively surrounding waters. They take their fish to the various buyers and markets in Auckland – the monolithic city that stands across the water. Rawhiti is one of these fishermen.

The only separation from Rawhiti’s home and his work is the white, restless sand of the island’s shore.

Rawhiti lay, face down, on his haggard mattress, his tanned body naked and sprawled. A tanned and lean body is what you get from extended labour in the Hauraki Gulf; the tan always dirty and cracked; the lean always tending toward impoverished. A passing traveler might think it local fashion, but the fishermen have little choice in the matter. The morning’s wan light unveiled Rawhiti’s white, weather-boarded shack. The weathered shack’s roof, part corrugated iron, part thatch (all equally weathered), is victim to incessant sea winds and the shack’s location near the water – the last

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guard before an unstoppable force. Wild wheat and toetoe litter the island, rustling in the morning sea breeze. Rawhiti’s aluminum skiff rests in the shack’s shadow; thoughts of thievery or damaging fishing gear never cross the minds of the fishermen. The island banded together in poverty, sympathizing with one another; a chain-gang of sorts, though rather than manacles, bounded by fishing line and tackle. Rawhiti’s bedroom faces eastwards, the new light illuminating his room through a quartered window, leaving a shadowed cross over the sleeping fisherman.

He made the first movements of another long day of another week. Rolling over like a boulder, barely moveable, his countenance looked dark and tired. Bags begot bags under his heavy eyes; his muscles loosely hanging onto his bones; sinuous cracks upon his skin begged for shade. An innate grimace that suggested terrible dreams, though it was the reality that was terrible, fell upon Rawhiti’s face, echoing the day’s prospects. With a great sigh, he began blinking his eyes open, picking sleep out of his eyes and rubbing his sore body. Sitting up on the edge of his mattress, the morning sun warming his back, Rawhiti rested his face in his hands, waiting for energy. In the light you could see, like the island and the house and the skiff and everything else on the

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island, all were beaten by the sea. Rawhiti sat this way for a while.

Pictures of family littered a solitary table, adjoined by a solitary chair. Aunties, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, all had a place at that table. A bottle of cheap whiskey, empty to the bottom of the label, stood among the photographs like some shrine of remembrance. The whiskey helped him feel like the family was at the table eating with him. There was never any water to cut the cheap liquor with.

‘Got to conserve water.‘ Rawhiti grabbed his shorts and shirt to combat the morning air and made for the stove, the wooden floorboards moaning with every step. Being clothed took a few years off him; a man looking and feeling a decade older than he was.

Here began his morning routine. The gas stove had two elements, one for the kettle and one for his canned breakfast. Canned beans, canned stew, canned soup, you name the can and he had it. The element’s low, cultish light illuminated the kitchenette side of the shack. Rawhiti would consider running the generator to use one naked bulb that hung from the patched ceiling but always resolved not to expend the fuel. An exact cup worth of water would enter the kettle, slightly less would come out. Water was scarce on the island. The summer months were especially unhelpful in keeping Rawhiti’s water tank full. The howling and splurging of the kettle and stew is the sound that breakfast is done. Turning off the stove quickly to conserve the bottle, Rawhiti threw a tea bag into his mug and poured himself a black tea, and dished up

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the stew. The day had not started until these warm goods awoke some motion in him.

Sounds of his neighbours waking up began to seep into his porous abode.

Delighted barks came from his closest neighbour, who’s dog was feasting on yesterday’s scraps, gnawing as fervently as you would imagine a hungry island dog eating food would. Derek is Rawhiti’s closest companion on the island, and Rawhiti often wondered how he got by providing for himself and the dog. You would never ask such a question; poverty may have banded them, but they did not like talking about it.

Rawhiti swept the photo and bottle on the table aside and threw down his bowl and mug. He dropped his flesh and bones down on the wooden chair and began eating furiously. He was hungry and knew he would be for most of the day.

Unless he got lucky at sea.

Rawhiti was usually out the door before six, but last night had been nursing a drink longer than expected. Leaving his mug and bowl, Rawhiti filled up his bottle with tank water, put on his tattered sneakers and large-brimmed straw hat, and made his way to the tackle box before walking out.

“Gidday, Rawhiti,” Derek said, standing outside the shack.

“Hello, Derek.”

“Guess it’s a late one for both’ve us!”

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Rawhiti chuckling, “Yeah, guess so.”

Derek’s dog scampered around to the sounds of their voices.

An orange band wrapped around the horizon, topped by a deep blue, progressively becoming lighter the more it tended toward the water. Rawhiti’s loose button-up shirt whipped about in the breeze, and golden toetoe moved with grace above the tussock grass undergrowth. The sun gradually rose behind Rawhiti as he stood head on to the ocean breeze staring toward Auckland city. The city of sails. Great white towers stretched toward the heavens, all rising toward the Sky Tower – a building that, put simply, lives up to its name. Lit up in the dawn, it looked like hallowed ground.

“Forget about it, it’ll never happen,” Derek smiled, looking at Rawhiti’s contemplation.

“What’re you on about?”

Still smiling, Derek shook his head and turned. “Good luck on the water, Rawh.”

Rawhiti knew full-well what Derek meant. Each morning he stood thinking, ‘What I’d give for one of them apartments. Nothing flash. Just something nice to be proud of. A place to eat well, sleep well, and get by. Doesn’t have to be much!’ Qualifying the wish made it more plausible to Rawhiti. What Derek did not understand was the clause that always preceded this; not for lack of compassion, but because Rawhiti never spoke about such things, thinking it better to ruminate over alone. ‘I could be close to my family, my whanau. God, I’d

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kill to have ‘em ‘round. Have big meals together, laughing, singing, drinks and kai.’ Rawhiti would get sad, then angry with himself. Remembering he had fish to catch pulled him out of brooding.

He poured fuel into the motor’s tank and, throwing his fishing rod, trawling net, and tackle box into the skiff dragged it to the water’s edge. The skiff tracking through the damp morning sand is a familiar grating sound, the sand getting into his sneakers a familiar feeling. Onto water now, he jumped on the skiff, the engine howling with ignition, and cut through the calm surface. He was getting some speed. Rawhiti’s hat would blow off if he did not hold it down. Looking back at the island, he saw the inviting toetoe sitting beneath the early sun and behind that, disguised, his decrepit shack in shadow. Rawhiti kept one hand on the ruddered motor and the other on his hat while his shirt was blown against his lean body. The wake of other fishermen and the faint sparkles of their vessels could be seen in the distance. Rawhiti aimed away and dropped his trawling net. He would catch fish in the net (mostly tiny), but on certain occasions, he would forget to throw them back and happen to have enough food for the day. The motor purred as he continued across the water.

The skiff is Rawhiti’s most prized possession and one of the last things he brought before leaving the mainland.

Without the skiff, Rawhiti would have no means to work, no means to move, no means to live. He was well aware of this, frequently patting the motor like some house pet. His pace quickened, gently

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squeezing the accelerator, pointed away from the island, and the glowing city toward the Hauraki Gulf. Most headed toward Auckland, perhaps hoping the auspicious city would rub off on their fishing, but it was always better to work somewhere else rather than fight a crowd.

Golden discs surrounded Rawhiti when caps caught and reflected the sunlight. He stopped after trawling through an area of activity and turned about to go again.

Nothing. He pulled the wet net in and baited the sinker on his line before casting off into the gulf. Rawhiti sat on the thwart, patiently waiting, fighting with sea life and occasionally reeling in a fish.

It was hard to ignore the volcano which accompanied Rawhiti in the gulf – Rangitoto. Like mother nature placing her loaded gun on the table, Rangitoto sat a squeeze of a trigger away from leveling everything in sight. Light traveled from east to west, consistently bombarding his straw hat with the particularly carcinogenic New Zealand sunlight. The water danced gold and blue. Rawhiti spent the time, and there was a lot of time, between fish looking toward Rangitoto and the city, daydreaming of getting back to the mainland.

“If I caught a case of money or some gold, that’d do it.” Rawhiti sat slouched on the thwart chuckling to himself at the absurdity of these thoughts. He pressed his cracked lips together, whistling something along the lines of Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’, his dry mouth garnishing the song with unexpected mute notes.

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A tug at the line piqued Rawhiti’s focus.

The line began to run and Rawhiti, immediately standing, pulled the rod up.

Struggling with the fish, he adjusted the drag dial keeping the rod high. The surface of the water was calm, but Rawhiti, and surely some creature beneath, were writhing in conflict.

Rawhiti dropped the rod, spinning the crank as it fell, and quickly pulling back up, pointing the rod toward the sky.

Sweat formed on his forehead as Rawhiti continued to drop and pull, urging the fish closer and closer to the skiff.

“Ah, c’mon you little shit!” Veins grew on his tensed forearms. “C’mon!” His arms began to shake. He had caught something big. He knew it, and his body was beginning to understand.

The calm surface broke with ripples.

‘Here she comes,’ Rawhiti thought, exhaling a tight breath as he wrenched the rod up; furiously spinning the crank, sweat now dripping off his head and glistening on his skin, he pulled up again.

Ripples turned to splashes – again. The rich blue of the water was tainted by a mustardy green below – again. Scales and floundering now reached the surface – again. Rawhiti’s eyes widened as he saw the size of the fish, but there was no time to be distracted by the haul, he had yet to bring it in. Rod erect, Rawhiti looked about the skiff for his mallet. One last crank and the fish, a kingfish, was thrashing in the air. Rawhiti braced his legs for stability and muscled the fish and the rod onto the skiff. He threw the two down over his gear and quickly made for

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his mallet, smashing the kingfish’s head with a series of blows.

Quiet – the skiff rocked to a still and the sea breeze picked up. Rawhiti breathed heavily, smiling. Next to the kingfish, Rawhiti howled on his knees, exultant at the catch. It had to be at least a meter long. ‘Not the biggest kingfish that ever swam, but big enough!’ Rawhiti grabbed a mesh bag and fitted it over the kingfish, the fish’s mouth jutting out of the end. He tied the bag to the thwart and lugged it into the water. ‘This may be my biggest catch!’ Exhausted, Rawhiti collapsed into the end of the skiff, tilting his straw hat over his face. Rawhiti enjoyed a wellearned rest knowing he would not be hungry tonight.

Day time turned to dusk and the ocean took on a darker shade of blue; sea birds headed home to nest. Rawhiti fought with trevally, Moki, and a snapper once, but had not caught anything quite like the day’s kingfish. He was still fatigued from the fight. He brought in the line, secured his gear under the thwart, and headed toward the city with lips curled in a smile.

The means by which Rawhiti sold his fish was not necessarily legal, perse. An old friend, Andreas, from a time, long before Rawhiti ever imagined he would be a fisherman, runs a small restaurant on the city’s waterfront. Andreas encouraged small-time fishermen to sell to him. He would pay a good rate because it saved him from going through the incumbent fishing companies’ costly supply channels, which eateries were supposed to do. ‘Supposed to’ – a term Andreas had little regard for. Rawhiti breathed deeply CANYON VOICES

as he approached the city, one hand on his head, the other guiding the motor.

The other island fishermen would do the same. A few of them had freezers so when the handful of illicit restaurants did not want their fish, they would save it to sell, or eat, another time. Rawhiti could not afford a freezer and all the power that comes with the appliance, so when he could not sell fish it was a difficult situation. Although, the bottom line of purveying fish is that, assuming you have caught something, you have dinner.

Other goods may be missed without a day’s income, but at least you will have something to put in your belly.

Rawhiti knew he would not be able to eat the entire kingfish before it grew rotten, and wanted to get some money for it. He was nearly out of drink. Also, and more importantly, as immediate emotional responses are concerned, he knew that Derek’s dog would happily eat the rest of the kingfish. The thought annoyed him, and memories of how that mutt survived so long came flooding back.

A red neon sign reading - CARRUTH’s – bled into the darkening sky. Rawhiti loosened his grip on the motor and slowed as he approached the quay. The kingfish floated alongside the skiff. The back of the restaurant loomed darkly over the quay; all the show and glamour was on the other side – a false-fronted building of lights. You could hear the muffled sounds of festivities with the calm lapping of water and the sea breeze.

Rawhiti made sure the fish could be seen from the backdoor and tied up to its respective piling.

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Humming and smiling, he wondered how much he was going to get, the delayed smack of his shoes’ detached soles echoing with every step toward the alcoved backdoor. Two knocks and Rawhiti patiently waited. ‘God I miss my family.’ He suddenly craved a drink.

laugh, everything. Though he was also nervous about what Andreas would offer him, his wet palms indicative of this.

The door opened and a boy, no more than seventeen, stood in black pants and a white tucked shirt, took a drag from a cigarette, and raised an eyebrow instead of asking Rawhiti his business.

“I have a treat for you, Andreas!” Rawhiti whipped his hands on his shorts.

“I have fish,” said Rawhiti, stepping aside to show his catch.

The boy looked over his shoulder.

“Andreas!” Amid the noise of the restaurant, he could hear the kitchen staff talking, more specifically, commenting on their approaching boss. “…thinks it’s the Jazz age, how deluded can he be?”

“I’m not gunna be the one to tell him. I like having a job!” They broke out into laughter, then hushed silence as a short, stringy man in a bespoke suit sauntered to the door. “Walks like he’s a wise guy,” they murmured. The boy stamped out his cigarette and headed back inside, face unchanged, aside from the notable inflection of the brow. The boy must be new not to know Rawhiti by now. He could not keep up with the ever-changing staff. His mind had a way of either coasting or delving into details, no middle ground. Over-analysis and forgetfulness.

His mind was mostly occupied with thoughts of his family and how much he would love to see them, eat with them,

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“Rawhiti,” Andreas said, arms wide as if to embrace. “How’s things?” He wore a half-mouthed grin.

Andreas was in dark green pants and blazer, accessorized by gold; rings, a necklace, and bracelets. Add a fedora and you had an Al Capone henchman. He stepped outside, out of the restaurant’s light and view of his watchful staff, into the red of the neon sign. “Rawhiti,” he said, drawing out the ‘a’. “This must’ve been some hard work.” They walked toward the skiff.

Rawhiti exhaled, looking at the kingfish.

“Oh yeah! She’s close to one-twenty I reckon.”

“I reckon!”

The back door opened abruptly and the young boy leaned out. “Hey, Andreas!

Once you’ve finished being a wise guy, Mrs. Peterson wants to see you.” Sounds of laughter poured out from the kitchen and were snuffed when the boy quickly closed the door.

“God damn it, I’m this close to sacking the lot, I swear!” he took a breath and pocketed his ‘c’ shaped gesture. There was a silence; Rawhiti waited for the financial realization of his catch. By this point, he was drenched in sweat. Food, water, and drink were all on the line –

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innocent collateral to this man’s, Rawhiti’s friend’s, discretion.

“Kingies are good at the moment.” He said composedly, grinning over to Rawhiti, his sunken eyes looking back.

He stared at the fish, dissecting it, undressing it, thinking of all the angles.

Friend or not, Andreas could not hold onto a scruple if he tried; he had mastered the art of getting the most out of any opportunity. He is the kind of man that was compounding interest in friends and family since the first dollar was loaned. As his eyes feverishly looked over the fish, he began to nod. “Two hundred…

Two twenty ‘cause you’re a mate.”

“Deal!”

“Good.” Clapping and rubbing his hands.

He knew how much he had saved.

Rawhiti’s breathing became exaggerated.

He was heady with all the prospects now afforded to him, all rushing through his head, then naturally concluded with the pictures on his table. “I could see the whanau with that much money. It’s been too long.”

Andreas’ grin fell. He stood rigid, looking askance at Rawhiti. “Since when have you been saving to see them, Rawhiti?”

“It’s always at the back of my mind, you know. Can’t forget family,” he said, giddy as a child.

Andreas embodied severity: “Fix up your house Rawhiti, the family can wait.”

“Why are you so serious all of a sudden Andre, that’s a big catch!”

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A moment passed and Andreas put his hand into his blazer and pulled out a wad of cash, flicking through two hundred and twenty dollars worth of notes. He passed the money to Rawhiti.

“Here, that is a mighty catch Rawhiti.

Hope it didn’t give you too much grief.”

Andreas feigned a smile, though his eyes failed to follow suit.

“Na, not too bad, I’m pretty shattered though.”

“Using a motor?”

Rawhiti chuckled, “Na man, just off the shore, all legal ‘n’ shit, don’t worry.” They shared a laugh. Andreas, however, seemed uncomfortable.

Still overjoyed with his paycheck, Rawhiti failed to notice. “How’s things with you?

Restaurant’s still afloat?”

“Fine, fine – the staff don’t respect me, but what’s new. That boy you saw spends half his time staring off into space. How someone can have that much to think about, I don’t know.”

“He’s probably thinking of ways to get at his hard boss,” Rawhiti said, laughing, slapping Andreas on the arm. Water lapped over the following silence.

“Anyway, I’m gunna go to the shop before it closes, next time you see me, I’ll be hauling a three-meter kingy. I’ll bankrupt your restaurant!”

Andreas looked cautiously at Rawhiti, though tried to meet his mood halfway.

“You keep ‘em coming and I’ll keep on payin’.” Another moment of silence

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passed. “Hey, Rawhiti, go buy some timbre with that money and board up your roof. I’ll come help you do it up this weekend.”

II

Scoffing in amusement, Andreas turned toward him. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, forgot who I was talking to. Take it easy, Rawh.”

With more money comes more drink, and with more drink comes stronger hangovers. Being so disabled, flush with food and money, Rawhiti did not go fishing today. Instead, he cooked up some food and decided to rest on the beach.

Pictures were sprawled across the table from a night of family evocation. He used the door frame to support his weight, holding a bowl of hot food and slowly spooning it into his mouth. Derek walked by with his dog.

“See ya, mate.”

“Hey, Derek.”

Rawhiti got into his skiff and took off into the night, heading for a convenience store before driving into the black sea toward the island. He turned his head as he left and saw Andreas standing, cigarette in mouth, staring back at him. He thought Andreas had acted strange but did not think much of it.

“Ay, Rawhiti. Not going out today eh?”

Rawhiti slowly walked backwards toward the skiff, chuckling, “Yeah, what do you know about putting up rooves? And since when do you care about mine? I’m not gunna pay ya!”

Andreas took a final drag of his smoke and threw it down, stamping out the final embers.

“Shit!”

Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he turned, leather scuffing on the concrete, and made his way back into Carruth’s, swallowed by the sounds of patrons and staff.

“Boy, get your arse over here!”

The red neon sign lit up the quay, where the smell of smoke and fish lingered with the memory of this pivotal exchange.

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“Na man, got a big pay yesterday. Pulled in a kingy this big!” He signaled with his arms the great length. The dog’s head following the hand that held the bowl.

“Nice could take a couple off.” Derek chuckled to himself.

“Yeah, was thinking of going to the mainland ‘n’ see the family.”

“Didn’t realize you had family Rawh, you haven’t gone see them since you came here. They haven’t come to see you either.” Derek’s eyes winced as the midday sun escaped from cloud coverage.

Rawhiti pondered this point, slowly replying, “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be missing me ya know.”

Derek nodded, looking about for his dog.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re not missing you too much.” He said, laughing and ruffing his dog’s neck. Rawhiti looked

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down at his bowl as he had another spoonful. “Anyway, we better be off.

Some of us catch fish for a living!”

Rawhiti looked up and nodded at Derek, who then headed for the sea.

He walked back inside contemplatively and sat at the table, staring down at the pictures. Pouring himself a drink, a smile began to appear on his face. He would not make it to the beach today.

“Cheers, brotha.” He raised his glass to a photograph, drinking whiskey that traveled hot down his throat and warmed his belly. “Cheers!”

He tried but for the life of him could not remember why he had not seen his family in so long. Derek had sowed a seed that Rawhiti now compulsively mused over.

‘It’s ‘cause I’ve never had enough money,’ he told himself. As the days rushed toward Friday, Rawhiti’s drinking and cheer increased, with no fishing being done. He knew that the family got together on Fridays at his cousin’s house, and the closer it got to Friday, the greater his resolve was to join them.

The days that passed were warm days.

Birds lazily swung through the air, chasing the scents of dead fish. Derek’s dog lay about listlessly. All the island’s activities slowed down, and amongst it all, Rawhiti sat in his shack looking over the money and pictures that littered his table. Not once did the thought of doing up the shack come into his head. His mind was fixed, all day to day concerns were winnowed away, and nothing but the family germ remained.

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Rawhiti poured himself a drink and took a sip. The sluggish mornings beat on Rawhiti but lacked the strength to distract his mind. ‘I wonder how everyone looks these days. Do my brothas still play guitar and sing their hearts out?

Maybe they can sing now!’ Another sip.

‘Do the boys still kick the ball around, the oldies telling the same stories, talking family? Do they talk about me? Do they miss me?’ A final gulp to finish the glass and Rawhiti made his way to his mattress. His mind continued posing questions concerning his family, which had remained untouched for years, tucked away in a dark garret of his mind, ignored and forgotten with the toys, and now he craved answers. Rawhiti lay his head down, putting an end to the day – Thursday – knowing that tomorrow he would head to the mainland.

III Rawhiti went about his business the same way he always did. The intense light of the new day affronted his eyes while they slowly opened. He waited for energy, considered running the generator, ate his canned breakfast – the money having little effect on his meals – and sat a while with his family. He would wait until afternoon before leaving to see them unbound from the photograph.

It was already midday; Rawhiti had slept in. Anticipation and excitement all mixed in his stomach and sickly bubbles rose to the surface. Rawhiti moved sluggishly to the door - more sluggishly than usual at least - where he saw Derek on the ground,

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leaning against the house, crying. He had never seen Derek cry.

“What’s wrong, Derek?”

The day was hot and had no remorse for Derek, his few tears being the only relief on his otherwise dry skin.

“She finally kicked it,” he said.

Rawhiti walked over and sat next to his friend. “How’d it happen?”

A large exhale. “She’d gone too long without food. Both of us had. I couldn’t skim any more off the top for her.”

Rawhiti began to notice the buzz of flies and turned and arched his head into the open doorway. The dog lay dead in the corner of the kitchen.

“I was a fool to think I could keep her in a place like this!” Derek took a moment to catch his breath, then continued. “The silly dog was all I had.”

“I’m sorry Derek.” Rawhiti sat with him for a moment, then stood up and made his leave. No money was offered to Derek in his plight as Rawhiti had allocated each dollar to having some means of connecting with his family. The amount needed to alleviate some of Derek’s stress was going toward fuel for the skiff, or food to bring, or something else integral to his success.

He knew Derek needed that dog as much as it needed him, but could not lament on the point long before his own emotions returned to the forefront. Again, he felt the sting of his nerves. He walked toward

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the beach, hanging his hands in the wild wheat he passed, and sat staring at Auckland; the toetoe moving in the wind; the azure sky offering no distinction between the sea and the heavens.

Derek’s sobbing could be heard in the distance and other fishermen from the island gave him compassionate support, as opposed to Rawhiti’s distracted apathy. He sat on the beach with his mind unfazed and focused.

It was time. Rawhiti buttoned up his shirt, the first time he had used all his buttons in a long time, and stuffed his remaining money deep into his pockets.

Closing the door on his wanting shack, he brought the petrol container down to the skiff. His ragged sneakers treaded over the amber coloured sand off the falling sunlight. After filling up the skiff, Rawhiti pushed it onto water, boarding it with the rest of the petrol. A howl and smoky cough started the motor and its steady purr propelled it. Rawhiti quickly pulled away from the island and toward Auckland. His hair was thrown around in the wind while any exposed skin felt the passing air’s cold sting. Without looking back, Rawhiti squeezed the throttle and quickened his pace, squinting his eyes in response to the prevailing wind.

His senses were all consumed by the sea; its smells, sights, and sounds. Only in his nerves did he find relief. ‘They’ll be glad to see me. I can’t wait to see them all. All the cousins chatting away. The young ones running ‘round the place, causing trouble. I’ve got so much to catch ‘em up on. I should get some food.’ Rawhiti traveled alongside Rangitoto then beeIssue 20

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lined toward Auckland and its harbour bridge. To anyone else, the view and travel would be spectacular, but this whole process of weaving through islands, with the city and harbour in the low light of the evening, had all been standard for Rawhiti. He carried on with a stoic visage.

He was passing Carruth’s now, where Andreas pushed: pushed to realize his dreams of the din of flappers and wise guys, realizations shattered by the contemporary men and women he was tending to, in a hep-cat trapped in a den of staffed lions, Andreas continued to push against time. Rawhiti briefly thought of how his friend and how his big business was doing, surmising ‘well’ from a glance, then made his way under the steely truss that connected Auckland’s isthmus to its north shore. He would not manage to sell any more fish to Andreas.

His heart kicked and punched in his chest as the Te Atatu peninsular, where his family would be, came into view.

Rawhiti pulled into a beach reserve and dragged the skiff into a covered thicket, disguising it with foliage and severed boughs. He followed a trail to the road where he recognized the neighbourhood well. It had been a long time since he had walked through the suburbs with its identically weather-boarded houses – all different colours to show there was some distinction between the various hosts.

Ordered and regular light posts passed Rawhiti by as he walked along the furrowed sidewalks, dividing the houses from the front-most part of their unkempt lawns.

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Rawhiti used his next immediate goals to placate his nerves. ‘I must get some food’.

He dipped into a corner dairy and used scrunched notes to buy various frozen products that he assumed would be crowd-pleasers. The shopkeeper watched him suspiciously. His brow was wet with sweat and his tattered clothes hardly hid that the rest of his body was similarly saturated.

“You alright, mate?”

“Yeah, just these thanks,” Rawhiti replied, receiving a doubtful look from the inquisitive shopkeeper. Rawhiti did not realize that he looked like a man of a serious ailment.

Rawhiti was back on the street. It was not far now. Down one street, left down another, the path becoming more familiar. Dread came over him and slowed his dogged steps. He recognized cars, houses, bends in the footpath. One house, where the windows shone with festive light as if a fire was contained inside, he remembered fondly as his cousin’s house. ‘God, why didn’t I come back sooner.’

Rawhiti could not remember how long he had been waiting for this moment. One wipe off his brow and he walked toward the house, straightening his lapels as he went around the side of the house toward the back yard where he heard a frenzy of conversation and brief interjections from familiar voices. A hissing grill accompanied the mirth. His heart was pounding furiously now. He felt his stomach making its way up his throat.

Three deep breaths and Rawhiti stepped

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around the corner. Immediately, a piercing scream ended the gaiety. Gasps of disbelief quickly followed.

“What the fuck are you doing here!?”

There they all were: the uncles, aunts, cousins, and the children. A little boy was being whisked away, a boy with Rawhiti’s eyes. One of the uncles yelled at Rawhiti, standing up and coming towards him in a show of strength. “Get the fuck out of here, we’re calling the cops!”

Neighbors opened their windows and looked out, coming tentatively out of their homes to stand on the sidewalk, watching. Rawhiti stumbled backwards in shock, dropping his food as the men came towards him, roughing him up and yelling at him to leave. Rawhiti tried to catch the boy’s eyes one more time, but it was too late.

“They’re on their way scumbag, leave!”

He was in shock and could not string a single sentence together in rebuttal.

Rawhiti quickly moved toward the street in the wake of thrown cans and bottles, eyes wide in disbelief, and rushed back to the skiff. Sirens were going off in the distance and getting louder. He broke into a sprint. ‘I don’t understand! I love my family, I don’t understand!’ He felt sick. The sirens grew louder, the whirring sound exacerbating his already dazed state. He could not close his widened eyes. Rawhiti uncovered the skiff, eyes wet with tears. ‘The boy, he had my eyes, that’s my boy!’ He moved quickly into the water as blue and red tinted the upper foliage of the reserve’s thicket, constantly

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looking back to see if some mistake had been made and jumped into the skiff.

Sobbing into the wind, Rawhiti speed his way back to the island. All he wanted was his family, and he could not understand why everything had happened the way it did. He looked back again, but no family was there to tell him it was all one big misunderstanding. Only the police were there looking for him.

Rawhiti looked back, the twilight left the peninsular silhouetted in front of a burning orange sky. He was being pursued. Rawhiti knew police boats would apprehend him in no time, but this truth was not strong enough to distract his mind. ‘My family. My boy. My boy.

What have I done?’ Speeding out of the Auckland Harbour, past Rangitoto, he got to the island, left everything in the skiff, and walked with heavy steps, as if intoxicated, to his shack.

The police followed Rawhiti to the island.

They pulled up on the shore next to Rawhiti’s skiff and cautiously approached his home. The cries of a man could be heard. There was particular interest within the department in getting Rawhiti, an interest that made the policemen’s actions seem motivated more by passion than upholding the law. With guns pointed ahead, the few policemen who first got to the island approached the door. Various hand signals were shared, and an officer kicked in the rickety door to find Rawhiti sprawled across the table, weeping over photographs, a withered shell of a man.

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sandy shore. A salty breeze passed through all the downtrodden shacks, spurred by the tide that incessantly broke on and drew away from the island’s shore, both taking and giving in each bout, on and on.

Derek saw everything from his shack, watching the police take Rawhiti away in handcuffs, who protested the malevolent charge he was indicted for. He never knew Rawhiti had a partner, let alone that they had a kid together. Derek did a lot of thinking that night, sitting opposite his dog which still lay in the corner, and decided it needed burying. He stayed sitting and thinking until the early hours of the morning, then smiled to himself, as if a great weight had just been lifted off his tired shoulders. Derek let out a sigh while he went to make himself comfortable in bed. “My lot ain’t too bad.”

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For the original publication and information on author Max Johansson-Pugh, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 20

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FICTION | RALPH E. SHAFFER

The Not-So- “Genius of Jerome”

By Ralph E. Shaffer

Long before his unequaled career as a college basketball coach was over, Jerome University's Woodrow (Woody) Johnson had been dubbed the “Genius of Jerome.” No one less than a genius could mastermind Arizona's once hapless Jerome Jackals to ten national championships, nine of them consecutive, or put together a winning streak of 188 games spanning seven seasons. No matter that those titles were in the often sneered at and overtly semi-pro National Association of For-profit Universities, it’s acronym often teasingly spelled sNAFU. Even his critics and they are few, attest to his brilliance.

But along with his overly glorified and too frequently quoted "Ladder To The Top," his guideline for winning both on and off the court, with its seemingly endless maxims that he put forth repeatedly, there was a human side to Woody, revealing that even a genius can have feet of clay.

No, he didn't cheat on his wife, as did another Jerome coach who might have ended his career nearly as idolized as Woody but instead died in the bedroom of a harlot. No, Woody wasn't even accused of recruiting violations as he wooed freshmen. That was yet another Jerome coach who did that elsewhere and was fired for it but was still hired by the athletic director at Jerome.

And no, Woody didn't bad mouth officials when his Jackals lost a close one, although losing

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games by a point or two was a rarity for his teams.

Woody, however, had a flaw, one that puts him on a par with other greats - Stagg, Rockne, and Howard Jones quickly come to mind - whose treatment of a player or intolerance of certain conduct marred the image that prevailed in the daily press, at alumni reunions or when voteseeking politicians evoked the coach's name at campaign rallies.

For Woody, the flaw was that his "Ladder To The Top" left no room for other routes to a championship, or achievement in the real world off the court, or, in this case, to heroic action that far exceeded in its importance any buzzerbeating, game-winning, half-court Hail Mary.

Woody's fault was that he still lived in an age that was passing, and he believed those who played for him and wore the Jackal uniform should reflect those old values on and off the court. When there was protest, his concept of proper decorum was undebatable. The kid who chose to argue never won.

And so it was that Woody carried those values into the social revolution of the 1960s and early '70s. College kids smoked pot unless they indulged in something more potent. The old relationship between the sexes on college campuses - the way guys and gals had seemingly acted toward each other in Woody's

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undergraduate days and on into the 1940s and '50s - was gone. And the neatly dressed frat boys of Sigma Chi no longer predominated on campus as students now came to class in scroungy jeans and tank tops. It was not a world Woody could relate to. Not unexpectedly, he fought a last-ditch effort to turn the tide. He may have won 85% of the games his teams played, but he couldn't win this one. Except when it came to the moment his players entered the gym.

In the late 1960s, one of his recruits was a kid from Prescott named Frank Gilbert, a lanky, muscular guard. He was not at the top of Woody’s list of high school stars to look at, although he was good enough that a Jackal scout pressed Woody to give the kid an athletic scholarship and a spot on the roster. As a freshman, Gilbert played little, scored few points, was not a standout on the floor during the short time he played and left Woody with doubts about the kid's chance to make the team in his sophomore year.

We'll never know how good, or bad, Gilbert's second season as a Jackal would have been.

When he showed up for practice that first day in the fall of 1969 his career as a Woody man came to an abrupt end. With his players in a circle around him, Woody quietly surveyed the squad... and abruptly sent all players except Gilbert off to one end of the court for drills with an assistant coach. Woody stood quietly, sternly, for what must have seemed to Gilbert as an unnecessarily long pause, then sharply told him: "Get a haircut!"

Gilbert was dumbfounded. Over the summer he had let his hair grow long, covering his ears and hanging down to his shoulders, the style many of his generation, even athletes, now wore. Gilbert

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tried to explain. Coach was adamant: "No haircut, no place on the roster!"

Gilbert raised his voice in outrage. A calm, steadfast Woody told him the discussion was over. Gilbert was to leave the gym and not return until his hair was short. It didn't have to be a crew cut, though that was preferred, but it had better be short. With that, Woody sent the boy to the locker room and told him not to return until he had complied. The two never met again.

Gilbert not only left the team, he checked out of college. As it was early in the fall term, he tried to enroll elsewhere. His grades weren’t good enough for the schools he would like to have played for, and the state colleges he could get into didn't have teams or coaches that he was interested in. He spent that Fall semester at a Flagstaff community college, was a so-so member of a less than winning team, then dropped out of school... and into the Marine Corps.

His hair came off, but it didn't seem to matter anymore. In light of that, he should have cut it in Jerome and stayed with Woody, but the coach's unrelenting and dogmatic attitude had so annoyed Gilbert that he couldn't do that. Well, if the kid thought a coach was so unwilling to listen to reason, what would he think about marine drill instructors? Whatever he thought, he went through boot camp without more than the usual problems and within a year was in Vietnam.

Coach would have been appalled by the drugs, the insubordination... even the hair. Gilbert and his marine comrades were hardly the models of decorum that Woody had demanded on and off the court. The "Ladder To The Top" had no place in the war zone. Although some of those maxims might apply, no one was spouting them. Despite that, there was no absence of heroism. In

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Gilbert's case, while he may have been a player Woody could do without, that wasn't the way his fellow marines would view him. Nor was he anymore heroic than all the rest.

It wasn't Woody standing there face to face with a surly ballplayer, but the scene was somewhat the same. It was the sergeant, telling Gilbert to shut up and get down. Gilbert wouldn't listen. A hundred yards away was a fellow marine, badly wounded and unable to get back on his own to the relative safety of a foxhole. Gilbert was incensed that nothing was being done to rescue his buddy. The sergeant said it was too dangerous. Nothing could be done. Gilbert protested. The sergeant told him again to shut up.

Frank Gilbert achieved more on that day than any coach with a 188 game winning streak. He didn't live by some rigid rule that insisted on conformity. He knew that winning came from the heart as much as it came from a strict formula of practice and offensive plays. He knew that a coach, or a sergeant, didn't always have the right answer, that there were alternate ways that worked just as well, whether it was letting your hair grow long or dodging bullets to save a fellow marine. He knew that trying, even in the face of ultimate failure, was as important as the victory, even if it meant defeat.

Those were principles that the "Genius of Jerome" seemed to have omitted from his "Ladder To The Top."

And that's when Gilbert took off, cutting through a hail of enemy fire to the fallen marine, whom, it turned out, he barely knew since the guy was a replacement. Almost effortlessly, the husky Gilbert was able to lift the wounded marine and he started back to the squad. Inexplicably there was a lull in the Viet Cong fire, and Gilbert and his cargo had nearly made it home when the firing resumed. Two steps from the squad’s perimeter Gilbert was hit. The Sergeant pulled him and the other marine into a trench. Both were dead. The marine Gilbert went out to rescue had probably been dead before Gilbert picked him up. No one in the squad said anything. They understood why Gilbert did what he had to do.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Ralph E. Shaffer, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 20

There must be a moral to this story. If there is, it's not something taken from the "Ladder To The Top." No tired maxim motivated Gilbert to do what he did. Some philosophers would have said his action was contrary to the good of the squad, that they needed him alive and healthy.

But there are no philosophers in foxholes.

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POETRY | CHRIS PARFITT

Words is Neat

By Chris Parfitt

"Words are the wardrobe of thought" Me heard that somewheres And me likes it a lot Words sure is the neatest of things me been taught!

When me used to get angry Me fought quite a lot Me called people names like booger and snot

And now you confused!

Thats right, run away!"

Cause me ain't no dullard, Me knows what to say.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Chris Parfitt, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 11

Bullies threw me down and made me lick the dirt when me try to run bullies grab me shirt but now me knows words that really cut deep Like dull ignoramus and abhorrent creep yes me feel much better when me walk down the street If someone say 'hey dummy!'

Then me just repeat: "You ninny, you fop you obsequies twit!

You best stop your squawkin’ me’ll have none of it!

Your verbal deprecation stinks in me nose!

And me squash your aspersions between me toes!

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POETRY | MICHAEL P. MCMANUS

My Father’s Barn

By Michael P. McManus

After forty years his forgotten masterpiece appears unchanged. It’s waiting over there on its island of time, the distance between us a disused field, the rain-blackened soil a stage over which a misty scrim rises in remembrance of the play whose actors have died.

He never saw the spring-fed pond out back, the water clear all the way down to its muddy bottom, the cold, welcome shock of it in summer.

Buckler ferns circling its shoreline where children bound like wild things, until my father calls them inside.

That night they sleep before the foothills of the Alleghenies, and dream their way up the slope.

Through rhododendron. Through horse balm.

Through wild oats.

Through the abandoned cornstalks the wind rustles like a priest who asks to hear my confession inside his shriving pew, which I will never enter again – Bless me father for I have continued my perditions in the forty years since my final confession.

I no longer need your absolution.

My sins are swallows that fly at dusk, and pardon comes with every summer storm.

I am those footfalls, wonder-struck at dusk.

Purple sky holding my gaze.

Today I see things in the mirror of memory – my reflection a dream.

Step away from it.

Go. Watch it collapse into ruin –

Will this place pardon me for failing to save my Americana? – Norman Rockwell stood here at first light, waiting for everything to come into focus for his still life, each color soon swirling into a biased fiftyish sentiment in which parents fucked only to procreate.

The ghosts go on living inside them, where each day ushers in neglect until the fires return to burn our paintings we leave behind.

I see his field stone foundation stacked without a crack, pine log walls notched and caulked at the seams, a pile of split wood beside the house, sweet alyssum in bloom, a hummingbird flitting between lilacs, and the V-shaped roof where bees disappear into a hole beneath the ridge beam, weathercock watching until wind sends it spinning.

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Issue 11

The ash settling into silence like Buddha mind.

I step inside the barn.

October light descends through holes in the roof.

It exiles itself to the dirt floor,

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gray fingertips searching for a hold.

The cold could be a color too, like the jacket of ice the pond is wearing.

I climb up on the ancient tractor.

A red, rusting machine, it once lurched into the morning shadows, scattering deer from the orchards.

Now unrecognizable old men, the apple trees grapple outside with privet and brambles.

Sickle-sharp gusts whistle through open chinks.

A rusty chain rattles on its dusty yoke.

Not everything is dead here, unless it’s the afterlife I hear in the rafters – wings fluttering like the tiny hearts that hide there.

Here where change arranges time the way it must, will this moldy hay ever turn to dust?

The stable doors could be used again by burning them in a hearth. And love?

What becomes of it? Well, I still love everything that’s missing from this earth – things that winter long and hard.

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For the original publication and information on author Michael P. McManus, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 11

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | DAVID REDKEY

Kemetic Medical Practices

By David Redkey

Note from the author: the medical practice of bleeding patients was first recorded with Ancient Egyptians around one thousand BCE. Kemet (or k.mt) is the name the Ancient Egyptians called their land.

Drop Drop Drop into The pearl basin Crystallic fluidity Stillness upon the surface Shatters by expanding, spreading Diffusing into each crimson drop Locked whispers and images All of them fading into Moments.

Drop Drop Maternal Rigamoritis Fading closeness Now ashen minus hoping Vanish only into lost memories Wishing for returning, alludes Into the pearl painted wagon Only leaving me Why?

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Drop Drop Drop into The dream catcher Ideas forming, controlling Transforming my every word My every action, thought for my muse My muse slowly guides me forward Helping me, telling me Speaking out Hope.

Drop.

Drop.

Righteous Can you listen?

Can you let my blood The blood flowing from my nose Shedding the anger of others from me Fall, Falling, falled, failed, fail Foibled into nothing Pain’s a dream Gone.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author David Redkey, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 11

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POETRY | MICHAEL VELASCO

My Escape

By Michael Velasco

She is my escape on the longest days, In her midst in a trance, In a daze, Nothing more to blame than the depth of her gaze. I am crazed.

For her I lust, But it's so much more than a physical connection, I lust for her conversation, Consuming the deepest parts of my mental, It’s her smile that draws me in, Her voice that slides right in, My soul is captivated, My heart has never been so displayed, Feelings never this engaged, To her all I can say is that I'm amazed, She is everything and more, On a pedestal she’s been placed and I know this makes her uncomfortable because she doesn't feel worthy of the name, Her humbleness a trait that I dig and I hope that she knows that this pedestal is celestial and even that is not high enough to reach the mantel she rests upon, Instantly I was drawn, A canvas that she created a masterpiece on, All things in due time is what my hopes are banking on, Until that day I'm a man emotionally overdrawn, This is what could be described as the saddest song, My fingers crossed my will so strong, All things in due time, Five words they ease my mind....

But can I read?

Am I blind?

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For the original publication and information on author Michael Velasco, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 12

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | COLTON BYBEE

To the Unborn

By Colton Bybee

When I have a daughter She will be beautiful Inside and out But to tell her that Won't be enough

To my unborn children The unsung heroes Of their tomorrow Look to yourselves When you're in doubt

When I have a son He will be beautiful Inside and out But to tell him that Won't be enough

You are the shimmering light Piercing through the darkness The boulder in the stream That stands its ground Against the natural forces at hand

When I have a daughter He will be strong and courageous Unique to his own imperfections But to tell him that Won't be enough

You are the embodiment Of all that is extravagant Embrace all of your laments All whole hearted as you do With all that brings happiness

When I have a son He will be strong and courageous Unique to his own imperfections But to tell him that Won't be enough

Look inward and you will see The tantalizing day dream The embellishing query unlock your hidden concerns That guards you from scrutiny

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Colton Bybee, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 12

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | LIND FLOWERS

Mwenda

By Lind Flowers

I find myself relishing this search of you, and all my findings are lovely.

The fingers of my thoughts examine you, lifting and adjusting limbs, holding them up to the light.

I touch and reach into new places, observing the braille of your expressions, noting the tone of your words, sensing the vibration of your sweet hummings.

I am beginning to see you I survey you, from top to bottom, around bends and angles.

I look but find no edges, no rough, gravelly places, only many smooth stones, cool and weighted in my hand, that glint and gleam in the light of the sun and moon, like finished marble or jade, rounded in a stream.

I find these stones in rooms of you, like little nooks you’ve set aside for me to come and find you, places for me to be still in.

Everywhere I look I find some sacred treasure of you, that you have not hidden, that you have not arranged, pieces of you that you quietly let me discover, small, intimate wonders just for me to enjoy.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Lind Flowers, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 13

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POETRY | NEVINE KHAN

My Beloved Ghost

By Nevine Khan

You say you are invisible, As you drift through the night with your head bowed Eyes weary but ceaselessly searching Feet shuffling, seeking an escape Through places unfamiliar Where neither the quiet nor the crowd knows you You remain silent, yet Your heart lets out anguished sighs, Into the night that surrounds you And its beating echoes in the empty spaces, Fearful but unwavering in its fight You believe you’ve been forgotten, but I remember the sun rising in your smile The river sparkling in your laughter And the fires crackling in your rage You call yourself a stranger, but My tongue knows the twists and edges of your name I can see that you are innocent As you tremble beneath the weight Of crimes never committed You believe you are lost, but I have found you, Come my beloved ghost, Take a rest from your journey and Let me bathe your dark path in my heart’s light Shatter the silence you’ve held for so long, Use your strong, silken voice and speak, Your language is woven into my soul, And your words will never be wasted on me Unfold your petals and bloom Stand before me as you truly are The others may never see you But you take shape before my eyes in all your beauty and fury You are sharp and clear, flesh and bone

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Nevine Khan, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 13 CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | MARA YODER

American Girl

By Mara Yoder

Mary, Mary, popularity, Skinny jeans and classic Sperrys, Air-brushed look and Starbucks coffee: All these things tell them your worth.

Mary, Mary, see them staring, Analyzing what you’re wearing, Act like you don’t feel them burning Eye holes through your skin-tight shirt.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, Many secret weights you carry.

I have worn your brand of happy, I have felt your hidden hurt.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Mara Yoder, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 14

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POETRY | KAT LEWIS

Even When the Clouds Come

By Kat Lewis

Cookie dough crusted hands wrapped around a glass of red wine seem to clean rather than smudge. The taste of your fingertips matches the taste of your smile and I wonder how the fog floating at our chests on the walk to Mattituck doesn’t scare me – but only scars me.

Good memories leave marks too in the homunculi of our minds.

Or is it the cerebellum?

You always knew more about science – more than I could ever read in textbooks or on plaques in Galileo’s museum in Florence.

Do you remember when we stared at the skeleton of the earth (or, as you corrected me, an armillary sphere)?

We looked at how Antonio Santucci dissected the world into wires, and we dragged our own fingers like scalpels across the globe – from New Jersey to New York, Zurich to Lörach – cutting countries into bite-sized pieces that tasted like the cat-printed dirt in Athens.

The world was already so small, and you made it smaller.

You handed it to me, cookie-dough clean, and I kept it in my pocket until it fell out on an ATV ride as I scraped the dust out of my eyes.

You promised that we’d find it again.

We searched through falling stars on Masemoore Road and in Ethiopian films at Cannes.

Sometimes in cornfields with the black of night over our heads, I hope we never find it.

Even when the clouds come and rain bends the stalks, all I can think about is how I could get used to the taste on your lips of cookie dough and champagne.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Kat Lewis, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 14 CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | DAVID REDKEY

Rupture

By David Redkey

Stumbling reality comes upon in waves And waves of uneasiness and fatigue.

An elixir store bought with penny dreams, But failing to provide the respite promised.

Hazy way through a cliché of thunder, A storm of rolling expanding in a beat, Steady pulsating shards pushing outward.

Voices fall upon ears unwilling to hear, Requiring an escape to the solemn bed.

Upon the angel’s cloud the head rests, Viscosity collecting, gathering, forming Upon the tender tissue light cannot reach.

Building, transforming, reforming, and Collecting into the pinpoint of prosperity.

Pressure building, unable to escape.

Looking to be free, sharply Focused writhing needle prick Gushing out towards the light, Collecting upon the pillow below.

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For the original publication and information on author David Redkey, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 15

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POETRY | JOHN MOESSNER

Whitewood

By John Moessner

Your whitewood bedframe came apart with such ease it seemed it did not feel your weight these last twenty-four years.

You left to fetch a mallet in the basement maze of your parents’ life. It was not needed.

The metal wings slid out of their holdings like the lifting of a young weed in soft soil.

Your parents’ roots run deep into the foundation shifts of this suburban house, built not long before you were put together. Piece by piece, each ball joint sunk gentle into each socket, as someday we each will pull apart with ease.

Mid-Afternoon Shadows

By A.J. Huffman

fall like leaves across my path.

In this moment of almost contentment, I forget to worry whether my footsteps are echoing like tiny landmines against the pavement.

I belong to the semi-darkness of a failing sun. Our shines are twin promises that something better follows our inevitable descent.

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For the original publication and information on author John Moessner & A.J. Huffman, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 15

CANYON VOICES

Issue 15

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

POETRY | DUSTIN GARDY

My Father’s Climbs

By Dustin Gardy

My father climbs With grace and balance, Effortless he swings On dangling saddle, Climbing spikes dig into trunks Like spurs in horses’ flanks.

A tree trimmer desperado, Oiled Stihl slung at his side To be drawn at a moment's notice, Laying low whole groves of six-shot pine.

Birch and oak and poplar, Dogwood, elm, maple All fall before him, “The Legend of the Branches.”

Hang him high, he'll cut them low, And grind the stumps,

Making mulch of maples, Paper pulp of poplar, Cardboard from hardwoods, Paneling from pine, Siding from sycamore, Countertops from conifers, Staircases of spruce.

So I aspire to apple orchards, Chopped down cherry tree integrity, Ironwood imaginations, Window memories framed in willow tree reverie, And dogwood flowered dreams Of falling autumn leaves.

This man who works in trees Cultivates the very things That make me breathe

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“My Father Climbs” is about my Dad, who has been a tree trimmer in the Midwest since he was 18. For 40 years, a noteworthy amount of time in that field, he has worked storm cleanup in multiple states after almost every major hurricane since Andrew in 1992, including Katrina, and the recent storms earlier this year.

- Dustin Gardy

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Dustin Gardy, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 16

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | KRISTINA HEFLIN

comets

By Kristina Heflin

comets burn through the night sky trail behind them the dust and debris of all their past destruction it is lovely to look at streams of falling light against the black sky all other stars become faint wishes of what could be their end will be disastrous collision unavoidable full of chaos and turmoil yet it will be brilliant clamour in the night bursts of radiance passionate sparks glorious and all consuming until what is left is revealed iridescent rubble

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“comets” was inspired by my first reading of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. I saw Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship as having the magnetism of two celestial bodies, complete with the inevitable destruction that always accompanies such collisions.

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For the original publication and information on author Kristina Heflin, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 16

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | JOHN GREY

Gas Station

By John Grey

How do you deal with the heat and the dry and the solitude?

And the radio that crackles with some distant talk show?

And the pin-up calendar on the wall that’s dated 1975?

So what it’s take to work at a gas station on a desert highway where it’s fifty miles to the next one?

And to live in the shack out back of the greasy garage and the pumps and the tiny store that sells cigarettes and candy and gives air-conditioning a bad name?

And how does it feel to be all that stands between a smooth drive to the next town and a parched, cussing, searing stall-out in the middle of some saguaro patch?

The grizzled ancient in soiled gray overalls isn’t about to tell me.

His shaky hands are too busy trying to link up the hose with my gas tank.

And his line of conversation starts and ends with, “The credit card thingy ain’t workin.’ Cash only.”

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I pay him what I owe.

I just don’t know who I owe it to.

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“Like many of my recent poems, ‘Gas Station’ digs deep into my past when I did my share of traveling on the cheap, including trips out west where it really does seem like it’s fifty miles to the next gas station. This poem wasn't inspired by a particular character but a composite. My wonder at how anyone can live in such isolation hasn't left me.”

- John Grey

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For the original publication and information on author John Grey, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 17

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | SHARON BROWNING

Forty Years I Wandered on the Backside of the Mountain

By Sharon Browning

Forty years I dripped, dribbled, drabbled, dropped clots.

Dripped, dribbled, drabbled, dropped children, unfertilized ovum, perfect follicles, lusting for sperm.

Forty years of dripping, dribbling, drabbling, dropping fragments of uterine lining, my armies reinforced with thousands of conscripted cells waiting for the command to charge ahead, subdue the wayward egg now implanted with twenty-three other chromosomes, now bastardized into Homo sapiens sapiens destined to stand erect, bipedal.

Forty years of not hearing the General’s command, they, these conscripted soldiers of erythrocytes, wept their sadness, dripped their gloom, dribbled their mourning, collecting in drabs their wailing, dropped their grief, and I bled, another month with no baby, a life lived with no legacy except for the tales of wandering, in Midian, on the backside of the mountain.

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“‘Forty Years I Wandered on the Backside of the Mountain’ was conceived to commemorate living with fibroids for over twenty-five years and the infertility issues that resulted.”

- Sharon Browning

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For the original publication and information on author Sharon Browning, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 17

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | MADISON SHANLEY

With Nothing To Hold

By Madison Shanley

Her hands held the story she could no longer tell With bones that creaked, Veins so dark they matched her eyes, And nails with a chipped polish.

The right remains clasped Holding the memory of the beads She often used to keep her mind at peace And keep her worries at bay a little longer.

And the left keeps a tremor While holding her glass Or scratching an itch that isn’t there.

Even when reaching out to caress my face.

At night they remain active Clutching her rosary tight to her chest, Stretching beside her to feel the place now empty, Grasping at something we cannot see.

Though they are tired and weak: Unable to hold the weight they once did, Her hands remind me of who she once was Who she is now and who she will always be.

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With Nothing to Hold is a poem inspired by my Nana, Patsy. She was diagnosed with dementia a few years ago but it wasn’t until I moved in with her that I fully understood just what that meant. As I sat with her on our deck over the summer, I began to notice how much of who she was had slipped away and I wrote this poem to aid my mind in remembering. I tried to capture the things that had always stood out the most to me about her, particularly how tender she became in her later years and her unwavering faith despite all that could have shaken it. This poem helped me understand that pieces of her will always be remembered in me.

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For the original publication and information on author Madison Shanley, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 18

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | JOHN PAYTON

3:16 A.M.

By John Payton

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I was introduced to Blackout Poetry as part of an assignment for a course entitled, “Creative Compassion through Verse, Rap and Poetry” instructed by Sasha Billbe. The act of taking someone else’s words and repurposing them to use an outlet for your own creative expression ended up being very therapeutic during a period of high stress in my life.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author John Payton, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 18

CANYON VOICES

Issue 18

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POETRY | ANDREW RICKY ROBERTS

Time Moves in Perpetual Motion

By Andrew Ricky Roberts

And freeze time Thus taking out of it Only what you want Thus ruining that Pretty picture frame Like killing a flower When you pick it Outta the ground But at the very least You got a memento To remember The moment by As if it were all worth it If only to live A lie Time is in perpetual Motion All these people will Soon, one day die Time is in perpetual motion All these things will come to pass Time is in perpetual motion Even the best things never last Time is in perpetual motion Every bad thing comes and goes Time is in perpetual motion There is no end or beginnin Only slow Moving Time Moving Too fast

Time is in perpetual motion A freeze frame Sounds good to me If we’re just livin in a simulation Then what’s real life anyways It’s only the moment that lasts The thing that stays stagnant That one stoppage in time Timeisinperpetualmotion And time will never last And there ain’t no time to stop the commotion Time’s in perpetual motion And every good thing Comes to pass Time is in perpetual motion And you can’t stay neutral On a moving train Time moves in Perpetual Motion And if you want To stop The movement You really Can’t Better go insane Better to have control over your situation Or you’ll probably go sane

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Andrew Ricky Roberts, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 19 CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | FANNI SOMOGYI

Autumn is almost here and so is our Passing

By Fanni Somogyi

A yellow field rests near the highway, Cameras roll as we walk through an almost hidden path.

This mellow moment refuses to stay: As always love’s reaper is time, it (already) clasps the scythe.

Concrete contrasts with yellow ocher vision-scape: We walk silent, eavesdropping birch whispers, Hand held, but imminent fracture oh, I wish to escape!

Treaded Amsterdam roads, feet form blisters, Skin breaks; sudden seagull shriek rips through languid air Its sound tugs minds from inner caves to be set free In a surreal scene. Only your hand’s warmth Embraces me in this reality.

The yellow begins to make me feel unsteady As the color of ephemerality.

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“Autumn is almost here and so is our Passing was inspired by an afternoon with a now friendturned lover. On our last evening in Amsterdam we solemnly walked back to the hotel on the outskirts of the city. I wanted to soak in everything from that walk; it was bitter-sweet. With this poem I commemorate our shared time and the imminent goodbye.”

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For the original publication and information on author Fanni Somogyi, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 19

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | NATASHA N. DEONARAIN

Pink Ladies

By Natasha N. Deonarain

some hang in there, crawling back into and through themselves, shrinking their bodies to be as faint as possible so they’ll never have to fall. others let go, free-fall until they land hard with a thud. they won’t let their bruises heal but prefer instead to rot, making it as unpleasant as possible for everyone else to endure. some like a bit of s&m. they get a bite bit from their taught flesh, bemoaning pain and pleasure, watching plump lips and canines drip their sweet juice. those who wait are caught by caressing hands and carried away in baskets of glory, carefully placed on top of tables and inside crystalline bowls where their life is painted into stillness.

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“Pink Ladies extends this idea to the different ways we can each choose to face our mortality.”

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For the original publication and information on author Natasha N. Deonarain, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 19

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | NATASHA N. DEONARAIN

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POETRY | RAMSEY ERIC RAMSEY

On Hearing the Learn’d Astronaut

By Ramsey Eric Ramsey

Fit the conquering astronaut hero, whose lecture enthralls the gathered, The techno-apocalypse comes hidden beneath a parade of fanfare.

Disguised, too, by the cover of laughter his slideshow elicits at how quickly Progress makes everything obsolete, like the tux from a 70’s prom photo and his date’s hairdo by now long since combed out, cut, and swept away.

Yet the hit hits harder, when it comes unseen– What would it mean to prepare a little for what is already here on the way? Look!

Look, there’s a Walkman and a rotary phone– how quaint– More laughter takes off.

A few on the lookout (who are fond of electricity, and antibiotics, and modern stuff as much as the next) Whose voices are drowned in the celebration, Cassandra-like, sit with clenched hands.

They look nay-saying fools amidst the applause.

Stranger still: we might even welcome it.

Swinging wide the door as we invite the catastrophe across the threshold, we might say these words– After you . . .

Yet after, what words will be left Poet’s Recital to come to terms with our own being obsolete?

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◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Ramsey Eric Ramsey, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 20 Issue 20

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

POETRY | PAUL BLUESTEIN

Last Leaf

By Paul Bluestein

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For the original publication and information on author Paul Bluestein, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 20

CANYON VOICES

Issue 20

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

POETRY | JOHN TUSTIN

Beam of Moonlight

By John Tustin

I hold her tonight.

She warms me, Nourishes me, But she has no form.

Fingers of light Threading through my beard, Looking into my eyes And finding me just.

Her eyes black as the age Of the earth, Her flesh translucent, shining, Perfect to the touch.

I wake up And she is gone.

Beam of moonlight As warm as the sunlight; She brightens my night And leaves me wanting When the sad sick sun Returns to torment me With her own unsubtle glare, Without the insight Of that light From the night (small, so focused) That escapes The moment I awake In the arms Of no one, In The presence of nothing.

Nothing but me.

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For the original publication and information on author John Tustin, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 20

CANYON VOICES

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POETRY | JOHN TUSTIN

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | KAREN BURTON

Kitchens

By Karen Burton

It was the year that President Richard Nixon swore that he was “not a crook.”

Elvis ruled the world of television with his Aloha Concert from Hawaii. It was the year that I first tasted mortal fear. *

We are safe here. Grandma has a basement. My grandmother stepped up behind me and gave me a shove toward the basement stairs. I flew down and grabbed a post.

The storm outside mirrored the storm I was feeling inside. The winds raged against the old house as it began to shake. Fear raged against all thought, and I began to shake too. I was caught between the child in me who wanted to cry and be held and the emerging grown-up who wanted to appear as unaffected as my grandmother who was descending slowly down the stairs.

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*

I was frozen, my gaze fixed on the tree outside the kitchen window. In my twelve long years of life, I had never seen anything like it.

“Grandma,” I said, “look at the tree.”

She came and stood beside me. “Well,” she said, “ain’t that somethin’?” The pink tendrils on the mimosa tree were standing at full attention.

Their slender strands, which usually pointed to the earth, were now pointing to the sky as if a giant cosmic vacuum cleaner was holding its suction hose right over the tree, holding the leaves in their new configuration. “Better get to the basement,” Grandma said.

“Grandma,” I asked, “Is there going to be another tornado?”

“Looks like we already got one.” She said and exited the kitchen to corral the folks to the basement.

My body started shaking. When will this be over?

In the two hours leading up to this moment, I had already experienced two twisters, one of which had lifted the roof off of the building I was in. My nerves were frayed, and I was terrified.

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The storm picked up its momentum and the house groaned in protest. Glass shattered. Every hair on my body stood up like the leaves on the mimosa tree. I knew what to do. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

BOOM. Something in the upstairs of the house exploded. I prayed faster, “...thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The house shifted on its foundation, and I fell to the floor. “DEAR. GOD.” Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I waited for the roof to collapse on us all.

Then it was over. With a sigh, the old house settled back down and the winds abated. The adults around me looked at each other. “Guess that’s it,” my grandma said. They began to walk up the stairs to the kitchen. How could they walk?

I sat in the basement for a twelve-year-old’s eternity. Finally, I walked up the stairs to find my

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grandmother sitting alone at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee.

* *

“The house looks good,” she said. “They’re lookin’ to see about the windows.”

“Are you sure?” my grandma asked.

Finally, I was able to swallow. I forced the words out of my mouth. “That was a big one,” I said.

“Yup,” she replied.

I could not stop the next words from bursting out of me. “Grandma, weren’t you afraid of dying?”

She took a sip of coffee and shook her head. “No. Dyin’ is nothing. Even bugs know how to die. The secret, Miss Karen, is knowin’ how to live.” * *

*

My first memory of my grandmother occurs in her kitchen. I am standing on a chair beside her stove, helping her pull and drop the ribbons of dumpling dough into boiling chicken broth. The air is humid and sweet with the smell of the rolling broth mixing with the flour. I pull and drop as carefully as a technician working with explosives. When a batch of dough is complete, I grab the beautiful silver spoon that lies on the counter. I place it into the broth and begin to stir the magnificent pot. My grandmother’s hand reaches out to still my own. “Don’t stir the dumplins,” she says, “or you will wind up with dumplin’ soup. Gently, punch down.”

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*

It was the year that Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was “The Computer.” Michael Jackson ruled the music and video worlds with his release, “Thriller.” It was the year that I learned to drink coffee and to heed good advice.

I sat down, struggling to come to terms with my humiliation and my shaking hands. My grandmother poured me an RC Cola and sat there with me for a long while, both of us silent.

We listened as my uncles and grandfather walked and talked outside.

*

*

“Yes,” I replied, “it’s time. Adults drink coffee.” I sat in the new breakfast nook of my grandmother’s kitchen, occupying the space where a mimosa tree once stood. I focused on the two tasks at hand.

She poured a cup of steaming hot coffee and placed it in front of me. “If you are going to learn to drink coffee,” she instructed, “drink it black, the way it should be.” The aroma was heaven.

Why can’t coffee taste as good as it smells? I gingerly tasted the steaming hot brew. Damn, still bitter. “Sugar?” I inquired. She shook her head indulgently and turned back to her station at the stove.

I took advantage of the opportunity to add a spoon of sugar to my cup. I gathered my courage to speak the words that were hovering just on the edge of my tongue. My second task involved the telling of a great secret. “Grandma,” I began…

At that moment, my grandfather entered the kitchen to resume his post at the table with the newspaper. I paused. My grandparents’ kitchen was a hub of activity on a slow day. I could not imagine what it had been like when all ten of their children were still at home. Grandpa noticed my coffee cup. “You drinking coffee?”

“Trying to learn how,” I explained. He winked at me and added a spoonful of sugar to my cup.

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One of my uncles entered the kitchen. I honestly can’t remember if it was Bob, Bud, Bill, Marvin, or Melvin… The five sons of the Starkey clan were always close at hand.

“Since when do you drink coffee?” he asked.

expression of horror. She quickly stood and tossed the coffee down the sink. She placed the empty cup in front of me. “If you have to add milk, go ahead,” she said, “but sugar and coffee do not belong together!”

Good advice. I did not marry the young man who preferred boys. And, to this day, I do not put sugar in my coffee.

“I’m trying to learn how,” I repeated.

My uncle asked my grandfather to accompany him to the basement to search and locate a tool of great importance. My grandfather rose to his feet and headed downstairs. Before my uncle followed, he added a spoon of sugar to my cup and patted my head.

Alone again, I tried to tell my grandmother the terrible truth I needed to express. I drew my courage up from the soles of my feet. “Grandma,” I began, “I want to talk to you about something.”

She made her way back to the table and sat down. “My boyfriend at college and I broke up”. She waited. “I found out something…he…well, the truth is that he likes boys more than girls,” I blurted out.

I waited. I braced for the shock, the indignation, the proclamations of right versus wrong.

My grandmother simply said, “I wouldn’t marry him then.”

I sat in stunned silence at the absence of her shock. Nervously, I picked up my cup and took a sip. Immediately, I spit the over-sweetened yet still bitter mixture onto the table. She took my cup and tasted it. Her face screwed up into an CANYON VOICES

*

* *

*

It was the year of the great flood that paralyzed the central United States.

Whitney Houston ruled the pop charts with her single, “I Will Always Love You.” It was the year of my great sadness. *

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*

Exhaustion waved over my body, but I dreaded sleep. For in the moment when I closed my eyes, I always saw him. First, I saw my perfect, pink baby boy, born screaming to the world that he had arrived. Then, I saw my dying, blue, misshapen baby, whose broken heart could not sustain life outside my womb.

My mother-in-law, Phyllis, a quiet, gentle soul, sat across from me at my kitchen table. We watched my two-year-old darting around the unpacked boxes while the ice melted in our untouched glasses of iced tea. I could feel silent screams clawing at my inside for release.

Emotions waged a war with each other.

Pain. Anger. Sadness. Guilt. Finally, guilt reigned victorious and welled up inside of me like a tsunami and focused its wave

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into five small words, “I didn’t make him right.”

She didn’t speak at first; she simply rose from her seat and crossed to my chair.

She wrapped her arms around me and laid her cheek upon my head. There, she whispered words I cannot remember; a tear fell from her eyes and landed on my cheek, slowly making its way down my face and dropping onto my hands that were clenching each other in my lap.

That solitary drop marked my baptism, not into a church, but into a different way of being human. The shield that had stood between me and all the horrible things that happen to other people had crumbled. I could no longer believe that I was magically protected from the tragic, the unthinkable. Yet, in place of that shield I could now see a wall of humanity surrounding me, arm in arm, connected by tears and by someday, maybe by hope.

I traded in my search for safety and began a search for strength. *

* *

*

“I am OK, Grandma,” I begin, for I understand the depth of the question.

“Every day, I have to remember to choose joy, not fear.” I rub my tummy.

She nods in understanding. I walk to the table and bury myself in the folds of her hug. My brother walks to the stove to check my progress. He grabs the beautiful silver spoon and begins to stir the pot.

Three generations of women reach out together to still his hand.

It was the year that gave birth to Napster, Myspace, and Bluetooth. Fear ruled the world as it prepared for Y2K. It was the year I threw out my rulebook. *

* *

*

“The spoon is under the table,” I said, holding my spoon under the table.

Everyone else placed a spoon under the table. We each got a turn as night after night, a steady stream of over, under, behind, beside, in, and out echoed off our kitchen walls. We were playing a game designed to help my son, Dustin, who was struggling to learn prepositions.

One of my later memories of my grandmother occurs in my mother’s kitchen. I stand at the stove, dropping dumplings into a rolling chicken broth.

My mother and grandmother sit at the kitchen table, supervising. My growing belly is just noticeable under my shirt as my son, Dustin, is announcing his presence.

My oldest son, Will, thought of a new word to try. “My fork is between the plate and the glass,” he stated. Three other forks quickly moved to the designated location, but Dustin was puzzled. He stared at our forks. “Between, Dustin,” Will explained, “That means in the middle of things.”

“How is Miss Karen?” my grandmother asks.

Dustin’s quirky fallback response, “I can’t know that.”

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Will adopted the age-old practice of speaking louder and slower when faced with this situation.

“IN…THE…MIDDLE,” he yelled.

Dustin’s bottom lip began to tremble.

Just as I deemed it was time for a Momintervention, Dustin picked up his fork and dropped it in his milk, tine side down. “The fork is IN the glass.” He laughed and threw his arms up into the air, “I WIN!” Laughter erupted around the table as we celebrated with Dustin his momentary victory over a challenging learning disability. In my journal that night, I wrote, “Some games can only be won by changing the rules.” *

* *

*

Feng Shui is a method of organizing items and space so that balance and harmony are promoted between people and their environment. The first step in this method is to draw a Bagua map of your home. The map is then divided into a grid, with each area representing an important area of life such as knowledge, family, wealth, ancestors, and career. In the center of the grid lies the symbol of yin and yang, marking the heart of the home. This area contains the health of all who live within the walls and is the place where the other eight areas converge.

Five years ago, I drew my first Bagua map of my home. I measured the rooms and drew the grid. In the center of my home, directly in the place of health and convergence sits my kitchen table, the

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only piece of furniture that has not been relocated since we moved in almost 20 years ago. *

* *

*

It was the year that an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan. Oprah Winfrey gave up her reign over daytime television, ending a twenty-five-year run of her show. It was my year of passing the torch.

My best friend’s kitchen table is always a bit cluttered, but nothing like on this day.

I sorted notes, food, and dishes with one hand as I answered the phone with the other. On the edge of the table was the notebook in which I scratched out lists.

Katherine – potato salad.

Principal called for arrangements at 2:30, please call back.

Heidi needs sheet music.

Jeannie was flitting about the house, frenetic as she moved from task to task.

The phone rang again. “Hello, this is Jeannie’s house,” I answered. The funeral home. “Jeannie, you need to take this one…” I handed off the phone and went back to my lists. I listened as she arranged the arrangements. So much to do when someone dies. So much…business. It’s the busyness of it that keeps us going, I suppose.

My son, Will, wandered into the kitchen like a wounded puppy. His eyes were glazed with pain. Jeannie’s husband,

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Jimmy, was his godfather. My heart ached for my friend, as she was too young to be a widow. My heart ached for my son who was grieving his first real loss. My heart ached because a good man and friend was gone without warning.

Jeannie hung up the phone and walked straight into my arms. I held her without speaking for I did not know the words to ease her burden. I looked at my son across the room, and I remember the words my grandmother spoke to me when I was a child. “Dyin’ is easy. The secret is knowin’ how to live.” Living in the midst of death is the hardest of all.

I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down.

I patted the chair next to me and motioned for my son to sit.

“Let me tell you a story about the first time I realized that I could die.”

I began ...

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Karen Burton, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 11

CANYON VOICES

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CREATVIE NONFICTION | MELANIE WHELLAN

Stop the Noise

By Melanie Wheelan

Voices shouting, trays slamming, silverware is rattling, and soda machines are rumbling. It feels like it physically hurts. Spine shudders, lips are bitten, and hands yearn to cover ears.

Stop the noise!

Jasmine, vanilla, lavender, sweet pea, and something endorsed by a rich celebrity is spritzed.

Why must the perfume department be such torture to walk through? Hold breath, hold it…hold it…someone just passed with heavy cologne! Hold again! Now breathe!

Stop the smells!

Overly peppy shouts, handshaking, possible hugging, and loud laughter are going fast. Try to look in their eyes. Mine avert to the carpet instead. Is that shag? What time is it? Huuhhhhh… two more hours of this party and leave at precisely eight-thirty.

Stop the socializing!

Talking rapidly, asking for opinions, and using foreign terms, but not giving chance for interruptions. What did that mean? Oh! Here’s a chance to talk! No, it’s gone. Wait-gone again. Smile, nod, and wait to speak again.

Favorite books, authors, animated films, and analyzing fictional characters stores up a vast knowledge. Be at peace. This world isn’t odd and is accepting. It’s not that bad once you learn how to live with it. This is the best part of it!

Don’t stop this!

Rocking back and forth? Muttering? Able to count toothpicks from a distance? Screaming and crying while crumpling on the floor? A disaster? Hopeless?

That’s what people think and say about us. They think they know who we are, but they don’t because they don’t have it! They treat it like a plague that should be wiped out. They treat us like we’re a puzzle piece instead of a person.

We don’t have a disease and we’re not a disaster. We have a unique way of thinking, perceiving of life, but the lies are louder than truth.

Stop the noise…

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Melanie Wheelan, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 12

CANYON VOICES

Issue 12

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CREATVIE NONFICTION | MELANIE WHELLAN

CANYON VOICES

Issue 12

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | KATHLEEN MCAVOY

Namaste

By Kathleen McAvoy

I cursed the Chinese chef under my breath. Couldn’t he cook quicker? I’d called in the carry-out order before leaving the yoga studio and picking up the kids. Twenty minutes later, I was in the lobby of the restaurant, waiting. The food should have been ready. As I watched my children grow restless and fidgety, I completely lost the peace and contentment of Power yoga followed by a long Savasana. Instead, I was filled with frustration. Finally, a half-hour and several complaints later, I was handed a plastic bag stuffed with Styrofoam containers of lo mein, egg foo yung, and beef with broccoli. As I loaded food and kids into the SUV, I was bombarded with whining: Mom, when are we going to eat? Mom, I’m starving. Mom, I’m going to die of hunger. Assuring them that we were only five minutes from home, I pulled rapidly out of the parking lot and onto the boulevard leading to our subdivision.

I saw the car first. It was an economy vehicle, nondescript except for the crumpled driver’s door and the fact that it was positioned awkwardly on the sidewalk, not the street. Its back-end was tilted upward, balanced across some rocky landscaping, the hood pointing downward and propping the car in place.

I decelerated, my stomach churning with dread.

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Then I saw the boy. He appeared to be no more than 16 or 17 years old. He was sitting on the sidewalk about six feet behind the ruined car, slowly rocking back and forth, knees clasped to his chest.

He seemed to be in great pain, and his face was deathly pale. My mom-instinct told me that he was about to throw-up. I saw cars stopping and parking, witnesses getting out, cell phones pressed to ears. I thought about stopping too, but what had I seen? Nothing at all…we had clearly arrived moments after the accident occurred.

I glanced quickly in the rear-view mirror.

My sixth-grade daughter had a bird’s-eye view through her window. However, her unconcerned expression indicated that she hadn’t seen a thing. Headphones dangled from her ears, and perhaps in her mind’s eye, she saw herself dancing to the tune playing on her iPod. Ditto for my son, the fourth-grader. A wireless headset was firmly clamped around his ears, and the built-in TV monitor had been pulled down from The truth was astoundingly plain to see: if the Chinese chef, whom I’d silently cursed, had cooked a little quicker, we might have been in that accident. the car’s ceiling. My son’s attention was riveted to his current favorite DVD.

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Relief flooded through my limbs that the children hadn’t noticed the grisly sight.

At the same time, I became aware of my heart hammering in my chest. The truth was astoundingly plain to see: if the Chinese chef, whom I’d silently cursed, had cooked a little quicker, we might have been in that accident. The children and I could have been killed or injured.

Like a mantra, my thoughts swirled around this fact: It could have been me. If the Chinese chef had cooked faster, I could have been in that exact spot at the wrong time. I vowed to never curse slow chefs again.

When I arrived home minutes later I told my husband about the accident, conveying my profound relief that we hadn’t been involved. As I spooned hot, savory-scented noodles, rice, and meat into bowls, I mentioned that I honestly couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that wreck.

“The driver’s door…oh, I don’t even want to think about it! That boy was so lucky to have climbed out of the car alive,” I said, shaking my head.

But the truth was, he hadn't climbed out of that car. He had been in a different vehicle, one that I hadn't noticed. He was, in fact, the driver who caused the fatal accident.

The next morning our local newspaper reported the following: after failing to stop at a stop sign, the boy and his passenger sailed across five lanes of traffic at a high speed, ultimately Tboning the economy car that I had mistakenly assumed to be his. The car

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perched precariously on top of the landscaping had belonged to a 24-year old woman on her way home from work.

Unbeknownst to me, she had been inside the vehicle, still strapped to her seat when I passed by, and she died at the scene. The young man who caused the accident, as well as his passenger, sustained only minor injuries.

Several days later, the local newspaper supplied even more information about the accident. I had estimated the age of the young man to be around sixteen years old, and indeed he was. In fact, he had just received his driver’s license a few hours prior to the crash. A roadside grave was built at the street corner where the accident occurred: lavender and pink Care Bears sat among flowers and crosses. The newspaper reported that the victim, the young woman, had worked at a local bank by day and attended nursing school by night. Her fiancée was devastated; her parents heartbroken.

Each time I passed the roadside grave – often every day, during trips to the grocery store, the dry cleaners, and my favorite coffee shop – I felt anger well up inside of me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the close call I’d had, basically a brush with death. I was furious with the sixteen-year-old driver and brooded upon the brash, cavalier attitude of young people these days. Inexplicably, I also berated the parents of the boy, mentally criticizing their poor parenting skills which had inevitably led to such an irresponsible, dangerous offspring. Look what they unleashed into this world! I thought, angrily and self-righteously. I

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won’t allow that when my children turn sixteen! *

* *

*

But sometime during the week after the accident, I attended a particularly memorable yoga class. One that exemplified the magic of yoga and its mind-body-spirit connection. At the end, the instructor gently roused us out of Savasana, or Corpse Pose, and asked us to find a comfortable, seated position.

Closure and farewell always comes next; most yoga classes conclude with hands in prayer position, and both the teacher and the students recite “Namaste.” But Kat, my instructor, paused before this ritual was complete. Staring intently at us, she asked no one in particular: “You say it after every class, but do you know what ‘Namaste’ means?”

The room was silent. Why is she delaying us? I thought. Yoga is over – it’s time to go.

After a long, awkward pause, my instructor continued. “Namaste,” she said, “translates roughly to: ‘I see in you another me.’ In saying that, we offer each other a gift, a tangible reminder of what yoga is really about; that is, breakingdown dualities, finding the common ground, discovering unity.”

She smiled, then finally bowed her head.

"Namaste, class.”

“Namaste,” we chanted in return, bowing respectfully. I kept my head lowered a bit longer than usual. As I rolled up my mat

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and gathered my things, I pondered what she had shared with us, and the implications of this word Namaste. *

* *

*

Driving home slowly, I became aware of a memory, dislodged from the far corners of my subconscious. A memory of a time and place that I hadn't thought about for nearly thirty years. A memory of myself, younger and immature – foolish even. I winced. This memory still hurts.

The details are vivid: I am working nights and weekends at my very first job, a local discount store, and the owners rent a hall and host a Christmas party for the employees. I am sixteen years old back in 1980 – a time when parents were less paranoid (or less concerned) about their children’s whereabouts. I am unchaperoned; the party is unchaperoned. Chuck Tunacliffe, the older warehouse guy whom I have a crush on, gets me drinks from the open bar.

Lots of drinks. He wants to get me drunk.

He hopes to take advantage of me, to invite me out to his car to make-out, maybe get lucky, at least get a blow-job.

He doesn’t get laid, but I still remember the nauseating taste of cum mixed with alcohol. When it’s over, he walks back to the party, snowflakes swirling around his lanky body. I remain in the parking lot, ashamed of what I’ve done, of how cheaply and easily I allowed myself to be taken advantage of. Being 1980, it doesn’t occur to me that this was date-rape by a predatory guy who deliberately set out to take advantage of an under-age girl. I am simply disgusted with myself. I turn and Issue 13

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walk to my car, unable to face anyone, knowing that Chuck will boast about his score, feeling betrayed by my boss who didn’t think to monitor an open bar.

My parents had not asked me to call when I arrived at the party, nor did they request that I use the pay-phone before I left. Neglect and indifference reigned supreme in my family for the duration of my childhood. No one was awake to smell the alcohol on my breath when I finally arrived home safely, despite my efforts to the contrary. No one witnessed my stumbling, drunken gait. Would they have guessed that I’d tried to turn on my car with the windshield wipers instead of the ignition? I doubt it. Would they have predicted that I’d stop for red lights only after I’d passed through them, my reaction time being so compromised? No one would have even asked.

Naturally, I had quite the hang-over the next day. Whether my parents recognized it or not—I’ll never know. I certainly don’t remember them shouting at me or even lecturing me on the responsibilities of being sixteen and borrowing the family car. The only thing I do remember is the sobering realization that I could have been killed – dead at sixteen, buried just before Christmas. Or even worse, guilty of vehicular homicide, my own life ruined along with the lives of my victim(s). It was a miracle I’d managed to drive home drunk without an accident. And the ultimate irony to this memory? I had gotten my driver’s license just one month earlier.

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*

* *

*

After that yoga class, after the distant memory surfaced, I still felt badly about the fatal car accident each time I drove past that intersection in my neighborhood, but I noticed that my selfrighteousness weakened. My thoughts didn't focus on condemning the boy and his parents anymore. Ardhauttanasana…half forwardfold…straighten your spine and melt your heart. Maybe my heart was melting.

But was it melting into a river of self-pity, or could I muster some compassion for my sixteen-year-old self as well as for the sixteen-year-old boy who killed a woman the day of his driving test? That’s the thing about judgments: we rebuke ourselves just as often as we condemn our fellow human beings.

Ever since I began practicing yoga a few years ago, my awareness has increased significantly about just how many judgments roll through my head each day. This awareness has improved my parenting skills. I am less prone to judge my middle school daughter’s ever-present attitude or my ten-year-old son’s head-inthe-clouds irresponsibility. I can let go of my momentary irritation, and choose my battles more wisely. I’m even trying to be less judgmental with my husband. For example, when he inevitably treats us as his “staff” on weekends, suggesting what needs to be done and who should do it, I try to remind him that he’s not at work anymore and to just relax. Let go, allow things to be as they are. This new approach is certainly more rewarding

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than my old style, which was to get indignant and offended and invariably pick a fight.

Compassion is the magical ingredient at the heart of my new awareness. I believe it is the balm and tonic that allows us to by-pass judgment and condemnation of those around us. But what I’ve noticed is that there are tiers or different levels of applying compassion. For example, we love our immediate family – husbands, wives, kids – so we want to extend compassion to them, and hence, it’s easier to be less judgmental. But what about our neighbors, or virtual strangers?

I think we feel compassion for the good neighbors more than we do for the ones who leave their Christmas lights on until April or allow their trash barrels to sit at the curb until the day before the next pick-up. Who hasn’t felt rankled when driving by the neighbor three doors down who keeps an engine on a block on the side of his driveway? Or irritated by a slow-cooking Chinese chef? These “bad” neighbors, whom we judge, remain strangers to us because we know they’re not the kind of person we’re interested in getting to know. They are forever banished to the tier that doesn’t require compassion, only condemnation, and judgment.

So if it’s safe to assume that strangers – folks we don’t bother to get to know – are ripe fodder for the wrath of our judgment, then my question is this: why are we so hard on ourselves? Many of us “beat up on ourselves” when we’ve acted inappropriately or downright wrong.

Often, we avoid serious introspection

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because it’s just too painful to dredge up the foibles of our childhood or teenage years and face those shadows that may still haunt us. Although nearly three decades had passed since the Christmas party of 1980, I still felt shame and anger towards my younger self rather than fury at Chuck Tunacliffe for date-raping me.

Perhaps, if I’m able to allow compassion for this sad chapter in my own life, I can likewise extend compassion towards strangers who do bad things, such as the sixteen-year-old boy who ran a stop sign and killed a woman. Instead of bristling with anger, perhaps I can empathize with how he – and his parents – must feel, and refrain from passing judgment.

At yoga the next afternoon, my mind wandered during the vinyasa flow. I kept thinking about the dilemma of compassion versus condemnation. Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.” Is compassion the magic which allows us to transcend indifference and thus make this world a better place?

Maybe, when we see a tragedy on the evening news or on our own street corners, our mantra should not be “There but for the grace of God go I” but rather: There I go. Or: I see in you another me.

“Adho mukha shvanasana, downwardfacing dog,” Kat called out to the class.

“Carefully place your right, then your left shoulder blades onto your back, supporting your heart. Then reach your sacrum up high and curve your tailbone under. And good luck with that one!” She walked beside me, paused, and then bent my shoulder blades. She was physically Issue 13

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pushing me, straightening my spine. Her breath felt warm on my neck.

“Kathy, I need you to melt your heart more,” she whispered. “That’s it!

Beautiful!”

She moved on and addressed the class: “With every inhale, reach your tailbone higher. With every exhale, melt your heart a little bit more.”

I melted my heart.

Namaste.

◼ ◼ ◼

For the original publication and information on author Kathleen McAvoy, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 13

CANYON VOICES

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | GARY LAWRENCE

Famous

By Gary Lawrence

My dad was famous I mean literally. That was what everyone called him. Not just me growing up, but everyone. Famous.

My old man could drive farther, faster, better than any other trucker in the world.

Just ask him. He’d tell you.

At the time I thought he was special. Hell, at the time I thought I was special.

Probably every dad must be famous to his ten-year-old boy somehow or other, right? Maybe long, long ago even my grandpa was famous to my ten-year-old dad, huh? I’m famous to my own kids now, too, I imagine—for a little while yet.

Staying famous. Now that’s the real trick, isn’t it?

Dad drove a tractor-trailer truck crosscountry and was only home on weekends.

First thing that one Saturday in February we headed over to Donut Land for a glazed donut and coffee for him and a cream-filled long-john and chocolate milk for me. I was ten at the time. Donut Land was a small white cinder-block A-Frame building with big soaring windows and orange-painted wood trim, next to the tracks on Auburn Street. The two huge aluminum-framed glass walls came together at the top like two sides of a triangle leaning on each other. A white

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Formica counter and orange-cushioned chrome stools surrounded a bunch of tall wood shelves against the walls. The shelves were filled with large wire baskets, and those wide wire baskets were filled with donuts of all shapes and sizes on wide sheets of waxed paper. With its high, pointy-topped, wide-open entrance, Donut Land could’ve been a church if the windows would have been stained-glass and it was a little bigger maybe, and there were pews instead of stools.

This Saturday, with his tax return money bulging in his front jeans pocket, Dad walked through the swinging glass doors like he owned the place. He strode fast and pointed his hips and feet to the outside a little when he took a step like he’d learned when he marched in the Air Force, he’d told me a hundred times before. He said it made him look more “official” to walk like that. To me it just made him look like he took up more room than he really did.

“The usual, sweetheart,” he said to the waitress, halting at attention next to his stool and drawing his hand across the bristly top part of his flattop before he sat down.

“You got it, Bob. Er, Famous,” she said, already pouring his coffee in front of him.

“What about you, honey?”

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I’d trailed behind. By then I was spinning back and forth on my stool at the counter, thinking about how good that long john was going to taste. It took me a second to figure out she was talking to me.

The guy nodded like he understood.

I had a flattop haircut like my dad’s. I pushed my black Buddy Holly glasses up my nose so I could see her better. Her breasts jiggled a little in her low-cut blouse as she leaned toward me. “I’ll take the usual, too, please.”

The guy dunked his powdered-sugar donut in his coffee. I licked the whippedcream topping off the end of my long john.

She smiled bigger at me. My dad rolled his eyes and ordered my long john and milk.

He was a natural talker, my dad, a guy people flocked around when he was telling a joke or one of his stories, which was pretty much all the time. He took pride in being able to talk to anyone about just about anything—it didn’t matter who they were or what they did for a living.

This time, this Saturday he started telling the story about how he stole Grandpa’s brand-new Buick for a joy ride when he was a kid. Even though I’d heard this story a million times before, I still got caught up in it every time because of the way he could tell it.

“Marked the tires on the street with chalk first,” he said to the guy across the way from him at the counter, raising his eyebrows.

I don’t think he’d ever seen that guy before, he was just convenient.

“So’s the Old Man wouldn’t know I moved it.”

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“My brother Tommy and me, we drove that Buick around all weekend, cruising for chicks.”

“Cruised the A&W over on Main Street— know where that is?” he said with his arm out, pointing north. “Then a couple hours before the Old Man got home, we filled ’er up with gas and started driving around the block backwards to roll back the miles.”

The guy held his wet donut in front of him, ready to eat it but not wanting to be rude.

“But my brother Tommy, he couldn’t back up to save his life, the dumb ass, so I had to do most of it. We knew the Old Man would’ve written down the mileage before he left. He was one cheap son of a bitch, I’m telling you.”

Dad leaned forward, shaking his pointy finger at the guy. “So what happens when the Old Man got home? Tommy went right over to him and told him I’d stole the car.” He sat back in his stool.

“Got smacked good that time, but it was worth it.”

Dad saw me listening then, I guess because he bent down toward me. He hung there long enough for me to get a whiff of his Brylcreem and Old Spice.

Then he said to me real loud: “I ever

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catch you doing anything like that, I’ll whip your ass.”

He looked straight at me for a couple of seconds. I fought to stare back at him.

Then his face exploded in a big whitetoothed laugh and he looked around at everyone there. The wet half of the guy’s donut flopped off into his coffee. All the other people in Donut Land laughed too, including a couple of construction guys in checkered shirts that had just walked in like the laughter was contagious.

The waitress tried not to laugh, tried to look like she wasn’t really laughing like she wasn’t really paying any attention to him, but she couldn’t help herself.

I knew the feeling.

After we finished our donuts we went to Bill’s Aqualand and Pet Store in the new mall on the Eastside, across town from where we lived.

“I’ve been thinking it’s time we had a dog around the place. What’dya think?”

I bobbed my head, both excited and scared. So much for Mom’s new washer and dryer from the tax return money, I thought.

Dad walked through the store and up to the puppy cages like he’d been there before, straight to those squares in the walls with the windows right next to the big aquariums and kitty litter. He looked the windows up and down slowly, his arms crossed over his chest with one hand holding his chin, one finger laying upon his cheek.

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“What kind of dog is that yellow one there?” he asked when a girl clerk about eighteen finally came up.

“That sandy-colored one?” she pointed.

“She’s a cockapoo.”

“A what?”

“A cockapoo. A new breed. A cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle.”

He snorted. “Well, I’ll be damned. How the hell’d they do that?”

The clerk blushed. “Same ole way they ever get anything, I guess, sir.”

My dad laughed and the clerk smiled. She had dimples in her cheeks. “How big will she get?”

“Not too big. Fourteen, fifteen pounds max,” she said, making a small box in the air with her hands.

“Cockapoo, eh?” He smiled, thought for a second. “I like that. Wrap her up or whatever the hell else you need to do.

We’ll take her.” Then he peeled three fifty-dollar bills from the silver-and turquoise money clip in his pocket and pressed them into the clerk’s small hand.

“That hold her for now?” He smiled his Donut Land smile, reached up, and stroked his flattop back again.

“Yessir.” The girl blushed and walked away quickly.

“You know Jeff,” Dad said while the girl was getting the puppy ready to go home with us, “I had a dog named Buddy when I was about your age. My old man just

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brought him home one day, kinda like we’re doing now.” He picked out a small pink collar with fake diamonds on it.

“Buddy was part cocker spaniel, too.” He threw a bag of puppy food in the cart.

Stopped. “Buddy got himself killed when I was fifteen. He paused again at the Milk Bones, grabbed a box of “smalls,” then got a chrome food and water dish with a wire stand, too. “Same year Tommy and I stole the Buick, come to think of it.”

I thought he was going to tell me something more about how Buddy got killed, or some secret part of the Buick story he hadn’t told in the donut shop, like maybe his dad had run Buddy over or something.

Instead, he said, “My old man still had a picture of that damn dog in his wallet when he died. Sixty-seven years old, thirty-five years later, and he still had a picture of that damn dog in his wallet.”

Mom told me later when I told her this story that that picture of Buddy was the only picture Grandpa had in his wallet when he died.

Dad never mentioned that part.

So we went out for donuts and brought home a puppy that Saturday. The pup sat with me in the front seat all the way back to the house. I didn’t quite fill up the passenger seat back then, I was such a skinny kid, so she stood half on the seat and half on me with her front feet on the armrest and her back feet on my lap and her wet nose barely reaching high enough to look out, smearing the padded window ledge with dog spit.

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Our house was in the middle of a block of look-alike houses on Lawndale, the last block before Ridge Avenue. Across Ridge were the same tracks that went by Donut Land. Across the tracks and that grassy field were the West High baseball diamond and Welsh Elementary, the school my sisters and I went to.

We whipped into our driveway going fast, like Dad usually drove, and made a little screech when we stopped. My older sister Carol and my younger sister Ann were doing dance routines in the front yard, even though it was cold out. CarolAnn we called either one of them because they were always together and defended each other to the death no matter what. They stood so close to each other most of the time that there was hardly ever any space between them. So, we just combined their names, too, to go along with that, and it stuck.

Of course, they fell in love with the golden-haired puppy as soon as they saw her, like Dad and I knew they would.

We walked through the back door into the house and I turned right into the kitchen with the dog in my arms. She looked real cute in her new pink collar.

CarolAnn piled in close behind me while Dad hung back. Mom was drinking coffee and reading the paper at the kitchen table. I could tell how mad she was right away by how tight her face got.

“You didn’t think to talk to me first about this?” she said to me instead of him, like it was my fault. I froze in front of her and clutched the dog tight. Mom didn’t like it that even then I was as tall as she was and

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I was only ten, so she didn’t stand up. But then Dad took the pup away from me and held her up close next to Mom, and she put her front paws on Mom’s chest and licked her face. Everyone was quiet.

Nobody breathed. Mom tried not to smile (she was funny that way too, like that waitress, maybe), but then she started talking baby talk and cuddling the tawny pup.

“I think we’ll call you Ginger,” my mom said, looking around at us. “Unless you’ve already named her, too?” She snapped her eyes at us, first me, then him, then the girls, daring us all to say something with her thrust-out face and set shoulders. Then she stood up and walked away, swaying her hips in her housecoat and noisily kissing the dog’s ears.

You could hear everyone start breathing again.

None of us were surprised when it fell to Mom to train Ginger to go potty outside, Mom least of all. She kept her from barking at every little blowing leaf and made her walk on a leash right too.

Dad was gone most of the week anyways, so it was just Mom and us around the house. Mom worked nine-to-five as a secretary, so my sisters and I had a little time to ourselves at home after school usually, but she left us notes every day about the chores we were supposed to get done before she got home.

During the week everyone was serious and quiet and tried not to take up much space. It was like that until Dad got home Friday night or Saturday morning,

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depending on where his run took him that week.

Unlike Mom, Dad spoiled Ginger something awful, like that was his job.

Once when I was twelve, after a big Sunday dinner Mom made special for Carol’s birthday, Dad fed Ginger some of his people-food scraps. Mom couldn’t stand a dog that begged at the table, let alone one that would eat at the table.

She snapped her eyes and made her “tish” sound with her tongue. My sisters and I had seen that look often enough to know not to make eye contact and to be quiet.

Dad just leaned over and fed another handful of leftovers to Ginger like it was nothing.

Mom slammed her fork on the table, sloshing some milk out of her glass.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Bob.” She glared at him, daring him to feed the dog another scrap. My shoulders tensed, waiting for the explosion; my sisters stared at their plates harder.

Dad just laughed like he was at Donut Land sipping coffee, and this time slowly set his whole plate on the floor for Ginger.

“That dog’s got fewer germs than you do, Barbara. What’s your goddamned problem?”

Mom got up and grabbed all the plates off the table, as many as she could carry, whether they had any food left on them or not.

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“I don’t have any problems. Except you.”

She didn’t bend down to pick Dad’s plate up off the floor. She stood stupidly for a second with dirty dinner dishes piled in her arms. “You’re disgusting.” Her lips curled when she said it; then she slammed the plates hard into the sink and stormed out of the kitchen.

Like that time with the dog food, when I was thirteen.

I don’t know which of us laughed first – but someone at the table did, and we had all we could do to keep quiet.

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

If Mom heard us from the living room that day, she never said. Of course, it wasn’t one of those things she’d want to talk a lot about, anyway.

I looked at him, crinkled my nose.

“Yeah?”

*

I swallowed hard. “An answer.”

*

*

*

Besides drying dishes and taking the trash out to the garbage cans and putting them out on the street once a week, my chore was to feed Ginger and make sure she always had water in her bowl. My sisters had to let her out and clean up her house messes, which made them throw dishes and groceries and pillows and whatever else they could grab around for a while whenever Mom told them to “do their jobs.”

They said I was the “favorite” in the family because I was the boy, that I was “the lucky one.”

Days like that, Carol would dump all the silverware out of the drawer into the dishwater just so I had to rinse and dry it.

Of course, my sisters were never around when Dad got on my case, it seemed.

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“Jeff, got a question for you,” he started one day.

“Yeah, Dad?” “You eat today?”

“You drink anything today?”

“That a question or an answer?”

“Then tell me again. The whole thing.”

“Yeah…”

“Yes.” “Yes, I ate and drank something today.

So?” He nodded his head. Then he stood up suddenly, wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck, shoved my head toward the empty dog dishes, and pointed like he was rubbing a dog’s nose into a wet spot on the carpet. “Then why in the hell are Ginger’s dishes empty?”

Soon as he let go of my neck, I opened a can of dog food quick at both ends like he’d taught me, pushed the meat into Ginger’s dish whole from the can, then chopped it up with one of the thin sharp lids before I set it down. He stood there and watched me until I filled the water

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dish too and crushed the can and threw it and the lids in the garbage. Then he turned and walked away without another word.

I wish he would’ve just smacked me and been done with it right then. But that wasn’t his style.

Not Famous. *

*

*

*

It was on a sunny mid-June Saturday that Ginger got herself killed.

I was fourteen then.

My sisters usually let her out in the morning. That day, though, Dad was home and up first so he let Ginger out himself. From my bed upstairs I heard him walk across the living room, open the door, and let her out.

Half a minute later he was yelling out the door: “Goddammit, Ginger, get back here.”

He must’ve been in his underwear when he let her out or he would have gone out and got her right then. I heard him walk back to the bedroom, heard the change in his pockets jingle as he tried to slip his pants on quick, heard him hop on one foot, and bang into the wall.

“Son of a bitch.”

I imagined Ginger streaking across the street over to Holland’s to see Happy, their nasty old basset hound, like she did when my sisters let her out the front

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when they were too lazy to walk her around the block on her leash like they were supposed to.

I heard my dad yell Ginger’s name again, then right after that, I heard another sound, like the smack of a wooden bat on one of those brown leather mush balls with the red lacing from gym class that don’t hurt when they hit you. That day it sounded like the mushball popped when it got hit and those thin red seams all came undone.

Dad exploded out the door and I jumped out of my bed, pulled my jeans on, and crashed down the stairs.

When I got to the door, I saw a long green Ford Falcon wagon stopped crookedly across our street with its left front tire on the curb closest to our house. A pretty blond girl who didn’t look much older than me was sitting in the driver’s seat. A tall man on the passenger side of the car—her dad, I guess—had already gotten out and was walking around to the front grill.

He had a flattop like my dad’s, but his was gray around the ears.

I saw Ginger lying in the street by the curb under the car’s high chrome bumper. She was on her side, her legs and feet sticking straight out. She was panting, the tip of her tongue hanging out and touching the dirty tar street. Dad knelt, shirtless and shoeless with both knees on the pavement, staring down at Ginger. His hair was mussed and wildlooking, not all slicked in place with Brylcream like usual.

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All I had on was a pair of old jeans, not even zipped. I fell to my knees next to him. I was dizzy and a little sick.

“What do we do, Dad?” He’d always bragged about seeing plenty of accidents on the road. This was nothing. He’d know what to do, I thought.

Dad didn’t say anything. He slid his hands under Ginger to pick her up. But she whipped her head around and bit him on the forearm. Two bright red holes appeared suddenly on his tanned arm.

Then for the first time, I saw a puddle of darker blood on the street under Ginger’s tail. Even though I was kneeling, for a second the whole street got black and I thought I was going to topple over.

“Ran out.” The man from the car said softly, both hands out from his body, his palms up. “From over there.” He pointed at Holland’s across the street. He was talking to my dad, I guess, but my dad didn’t look up, so he turned his eyes to me. “Just ran out in front of us. No time.”

Behind him in the car the girl sat frozen in the driver’s seat, tears on her pale cheeks, eyes wide, fists white, and still clutching the steering wheel at the 10-2 position like she was taught.

“She has her permit,” the man said.

“Get me a towel,” Dad said. It took me a second to realize he was talking to me.

I jumped up and ran back toward the house. Mom stood halfway down the porch step in her short white housecoat and silver-sandal slippers, one hand over

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her mouth, elbow in her other hand. Her blue eyes were wide and the whites showed, like the girl driver’s did. With her streaked hair up high, wrapped in toilet paper and hairpins to hold its shape, she looked like that statue of the Egyptian queen in Miss Winter’s History class.

“Get a towel, quick!” I yelled at my sisters huddled in the doorway. Carol turned first, then both she and Ann disappeared into the house. Finally, they brought out a dark green towel. By then I was pacing back and forth.

“That isn’t one of my good towels, is it?”

Mom said.

I took the towel and ran back. Dad was still on his knees where I’d left him. He’d managed to pick Ginger up by then and held her with her back against him, holding her half on his lap, half against his bare chest. She whined weakly. Her feet stuck straight out, and her body jerked once in a while in his arms.

He stood up, took the towel, and covered her head, then walked stiffly up the driveway toward our garage behind the house. The man from the Ford wagon followed him a few steps, saying again how sorry he was. I got up and followed, too, but glanced toward the house as I went.

Mom stared at me from across the yard.

Snapped her eyes at me in that way she had. Then she turned and I heard her say, “Go on inside, girls. It’s over.”

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The man from the car stopped at the curb. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, and didn’t take his hand off for what felt like a long time.

I could only look in his eyes for a moment, then had to look away.

When he let go of my shoulder he walked back toward the driver’s side of the Falcon. He crouched down next to his daughter at the open driver’s door; her hands still gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Tears streaked her cheeks. The man peeled her hands off the wheel, helped her out, and walked her gently around the back of the car to the passenger seat. He practically had to put her in the car, had to pick up her long legs to tuck them all the way in so he could close the door, then walked quickly back to the driver’s side and drove off.

By the time I got to the garage, Dad was headed for the back door of the house without Ginger.

“Where you going, Dad?” He strode through the back door without answering. I stood there wondering what to do with myself.

I worked my way over and looked at Ginger lying in the front seat. Her head was still covered with the towel, and her chest didn’t seem to be moving anymore.

I slowly reached in through the window and touched her. Her body jerked and I jumped back. I could see her shallow breathing then if I stared right at her

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chest and the towel and the seat all at once.

I remembered the day we brought her home four years ago when she stood on my lap and bounced on my leg and slobbered dog spit across the same window I leaned through now.

Dad came back out a moment later wearing a wrinkled shirt, shoes but no socks, and different pants. His hair still looked wild. I could see the two red holes Ginger gave him in his forearm when he climbed into the car.

He didn’t say anything to me.

“Where you going?” I asked again.

He started the car.

I was close to him then. I looked him in the face, thought for a second about reaching through the open window and grabbing him and squeezing his shoulder like that other father had grabbed me…but I didn’t.

Couldn’t.

He put the car in reverse and turned past me to look out the rear window.

“Take me with you.”

He backed the car down the driveway.

“Dad! Take me with you. Please?” I yelled.

He bounced out of the driveway, squealed off down the street.

He didn’t look back.

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I watched the car until I couldn’t see it anymore. I stood there in the empty yard for a full ten minutes. I wondered if we had any pictures of Ginger, where they were. Maybe the girls were already getting them out? Then I wondered about my dad, about whether he had a picture with him, a picture of Ginger stuck in his wallet like my grandpa had had a picture of Buddy stuck in his.

to do. She said that going on was the normal thing for us to do. So we believed her and we did it.

I didn’t doubt it.

Ten years later I saw my old man again. A call out of the blue after all that time; he’d finally found one of our messages, I guess.

*

*

*

*

He came home an hour or so later. Alone.

Not looking quite so Famous.

Nobody said anything about Ginger’s accident all that day. Later, when I did my chores, I saw the bloody green towel in the garbage can. Mom got rid of Ginger’s dishes and leash somewhere else, I guess…they were gone when I got up to put food and water in them around suppertime.

After that morning we never talked about Ginger in our house again.

Ginger’s pink collar lay on the kitchen counter, where Dad had put it, sat there for a couple of days. Nobody wanted to touch it. On the third day, I took it and hid it in my room under my bed in the box with my baseball cards.

Things went on for a while after that, but they were never the same. Later that summer Dad took a load of truck parts to Washington state on a Monday morning like usual but didn’t come back. Mom acted like that was a normal thing for him

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We went on.

We never talked about that in our house again, either. *

*

*

*

My wife Jenny and I got a call from him at nine p.m. on a Wednesday night. He was still driving trucks. “All I ever knew how to do,” he laughed on the phone. He was just passing through, had to run a load of apples from Washington state to Detroit and pick up some engine parts to bring back.

Even though it was February then, below freezing, windy, a 60% chance for more snow that night, Jenny and I hurried as fast as we could, piled the kids in the car, and drove the sixty miles north up there from Rockford.

We met him just off Interstate 90 at a truck stop in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

Once we got to the truck stop I called his cell, and he talked us over to where he was parked in the large gravel lot by the rest of the tractor-trailers. When we pulled up, he swung down out of his dark-blue Peterbilt using the chrome sidebar.

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Even after all those years, he looked the same.

I got out into the cold and walked toward the truck. Jenny stood by the car and held baby Rob in her arms; three-year-old Angie hung at her knee. My dad hadn’t met any of them before. I’m not sure he knew they existed.

He stepped closer and took my extended hand. “You know the difference between pussy and parsley?” he yelled out in the truckers’ parking lot. He waited a tick.

“Nobody eats parsley.” His face exploded in laughter.

I froze, my hand still in his grip, wondering how long he’d saved that one up just for me. I knew he’d practiced it to himself plenty of times in the truck. He laughed so loud in the cold night air that I was sure he could be heard across the gravel and above the idling trucks by anyone stupid enough to stand there.

A shiver flared up my spine and settled cold across my shoulders. I thought, decided, then swallowed hard.

“You were wrong, you know.”

He stopped short in the middle of another laugh, a frown quick to his face.

He tried to pull away but now I held his hand tight. He recovered in an instant.

“About the cars. Grandpa’s Buick.” I paused. “The mileage doesn’t come off when you back up.”

He thought about that for a second.

Looked down at his feet, looked back up at me. “Yeah, well, I never said it did.” He snorted. “What the hell did we know? We were just stupid-ass kids.”

I let his hand go then. We stood still for another moment.

“Come on over and meet the wife and kids,” I said, sweeping my hand toward our car. “We brought baby pictures of our little guys, pictures of Carol, and Ann, and their families, too.”

He looked at me with his mouth hanging open like I’d just asked him what his name was.

“Do I look like a picture-kind of-guy to you?”

Then he marched over to Jenny and the kids, heel toe, heel toe, feet pointed out every step, covering the open ground between them swiftly. He stopped at attention in front of my wife and kids, brushed the bristly part of his flattop back with his hand, then held that hand out and smiled his big Donut Land smile.

“So…who the hell are you?”

“Me? Wrong? Never!”

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For the original publication and information on author Gary Lawrence, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 14

He grinned and tried again to shake his hand loose.

I hung on.

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CANYON VOICES

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | GABBY CATALANO

Creaking Mattress

By Gabby Catalano

It is evening, and he is pouring a glass in the kitchen. You are tired. You are slow.

You are going into your fourth year of college. Most people must think this of their fathers, but you promise he hides the ocean and waves behind his mouth.

Your dad is sick. He has alcohol addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and insomnia. It is June 2016 when it gets worse. You did not realize the consequences of one small drink, but you guess that’s what the word “accident” is for: the unforeseen, something that shouldn’t have encountered but did.

You go through the stages of anger without knowing it. No one ever warned you that having a sick family member can be like losing a person who is still standing beside you.

When you have finished college and started looking for work, you realize something has changed. You are pouring his drink. He likes enough orange slices to turn the liquid amber and two heaping ice cubes. You knew this before, but now you are physically bringing it into his bedroom; he cannot stand up to pour it himself.

You make dinner every night to the sound of a creaking mattress. Dad is already moving around. Sometimes it's mashed potatoes, broccoli, or beans for dinner.

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Other days it’s Spanish rice with just the right amount of turmeric. He likes it that way. At first, this is with excitement, a good feeling one gets when making something for someone they love. In fact, something you even dream about. It has to be done.

He likes watching crime shows, and soon, you do, too. Prison Break is the main event of your dinner meals. You bring his food, grab your own, and sit in front of the bedroom television. When watching men spend time in prison and move to different jail cells, you’re lucky that your father isn’t one of them. You hope.

Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months. You make dinner every night to the sound of a creaking mattress. Dad is already drunk. Sometimes you’re not sure if he understands. The potatoes are boiling. You are tired, but you bring him his food. You try to smile, and you don’t want to make him upset, but for some reason, the words “I am sorry” never leave your tongue. Despite this, you turn on the television and watch Prison Break.

Another inmate is complaining about his jail cell. Everything is silently forgotten or forgiven. You pretend not to notice him coughing up his food while stumbling out of bed afterward.

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One day, you are out of turmeric somehow, so you steam potatoes. Purple potatoes in a large pan. Boiling water.

You are 22 and still looking for work. You don’t want to watch TV. A raging anger has been feeding at you. You don’t like it, but it can’t go away.

You start going to bed at 8 pm so that you don’t have to watch TV with dad. You don’t want to make his dinner. You say goodnight to dad who is moving around in his bed — the mattress is creaking again. You slam your door a little bit louder than necessary. It doesn’t make you feel any less angrier. You find yourself crying into your pillow and yelling at your dad and his choices. He can probably hear you. It’s already the end of summer.

Dad is alive, but he isn’t the same. It’s in the way he moves — stumbles, scarily. He is still sick, and you don’t know what to do. Outings used to consist of going out to dinner and getting coffee together. Now it’s dad locked in his bedroom during the day, and you making sure he stays inside safely. You recycle his bottles and wash his glasses. No amount of time in this house can make you feel at home anymore.

Everything you want and everything you anticipate is now without him in it. He is unbearable. Sometimes you get angry again, but while you wait outside of his bedroom to make sure he eats — you hear him tearing out his hair and banging against the wall. It would be best to say nothing at all. You are crying, too. It is a new year: 2017.

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You feel a little selfish to feel like this.

You must be. Stop.

Prison Break turns into watching TV all day. Dad is in pain. Evening dinners turn into leftover meals in the morning-andthen-in-the-afternoon. You can’t take his pain away. How different he must feel about himself. How much happiness he tried to keep. How it must feel to cry while swallowing liquor in front of your child. How it must feel to not be anything you used to be.

It’s almost a new year again now. You wake up to the sound of a creaking mattress, wash your face, pack your bag, and leave before dinner. Dad is walking into the kitchen when you leave. It’s evening. He’s making his own drink. He isn’t terrible, but it’s enough. This will not be the constant. This life will not be the constant.

You like to think that, you’ve become stronger. You’ve seen first-hand what addiction really is. It’s more like an obligation, or a necessary force.

Dad is still there. He still likes his drinks with orange slices and two heaping ice cubes. He still watches Prison Break and moves around in his bed. You’re the only thing not repeated. You will not be a repetition. You hope.

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For the original publication and information on author Gabby Catalano, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 15

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | JESSICA WIGGINS

Snack Time

By Jessica Wiggins

I squinted at my handiwork under the sickly lamplight. My hand had trembled on the big S, and my cursive Sandy Johnson limped along the bottom of the permission slip in half-translucent gel pen. The paper was pink cardstock, heavy with underlined words and asterisks. Would they notice if I wrote over my first attempt? But then, a terrible thought: wasn’t my mother’s first name actually Sandra?

I stared at the forgery until my eyes felt like husks and the late-night tick of the clock became deafening. Tomorrow was the due date, and Mom was already asleep. I thought about what she said last time I missed a field trip after I had to sit in an empty classroom all day with Aaron, who wore stained clothes to school and brought his lunch in a plastic shopping bag. Over the roar of the vacuum cleaner, still in her work outfit, she half-shouted, “Sorry, sweetie. Just sign my name next time!”

I stuffed the paper into my backpack. It would have to do.

My class sang songs on the bus, chanting together with a heady rhythm of inhale-exhale as we wound through the cramped, tree-darkened lanes that meant our destination was near. Soon, a wooden sign on the side of the road read John Bryan State Park in runic letters, heralding a sudden clearing in the woods – a parking lot, bordered with a tiny visitor’s center. The gravel hissed under the tires as we skidded to a halt, and when the engine shut off, the abrupt absence

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of sound settled over the rows of downy necks pressed against the vinyl benches for a brief, sobering moment before we rushed to our feet and yearned toward the narrow doors in a flurry of Velcro sneakers and colliding lunch pails.

Mine felt suspiciously light. An elbow clipped my shoulder and I turned around to catch the back of Aaron’s greasy head; how did he get here, too?

My teacher, Miss Bennett, pressed a plastic bag into each kid’s hand as they exited the bus; I clutched mine tight as I was jostled out into the green, green world.

Far from excited to have made it on the field trip, my stomach was harboring a mass of uneasiness.

I had held my mouth shut during the singing to keep it from squelching out in some unimaginable way.

The bag was thick white plastic of the variety used for handing out travel-sized toothpaste at the dentist’s office, and it contained four items: a wooden ruler, a blank paper booklet, a packet of miniature colored pencils, and a magnifying glass no bigger than an inch in circumference. I held this last item up, tilting it see the sharp glint of sunshine that skipped along its edge. The damp, vegetal air felt noticeably cooler than it had that morning at my elementary school; I tugged my jacket tighter as I crunched around the lot, avoiding the orbits of loosely gathered groups of classmates who brandished their rulers at one another, giggling.

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“Listen up!” called Miss Bennett, standing tall on a curb. “Does everyone have a kit?” She held up the plastic bag, scanning the crowd. “Good.

Today, we’re going to explore Mother Nature.

Remember the drawings we made about the scientific method? Now you’re going to be the scientist, and these are your tools.” Divided into groups led by a teacher or a parent volunteer, we dispersed into the woods with the instruction to draw plants and measure them with our rulers.

At lunchtime, we would compare our findings.

I tramped along, sinking into pockets of pulpy leaves, and hurrying to keep sight of Mrs. Gillespie’s khaki backside as she led us into a little clearing. Her daughter Hannah followed close behind, the hub of a lively group of girls.

Chattering voices and excited squeals from other groups mere yards away floated between the trees like the distant sound of mermaid music out at sea.

I kneeled down to draw a patch of tiny white buds on wiry stems. Moisture quickly infiltrated the knees of my jeans, drawing the warmth out of my legs and down to the soil. My magnifying glass revealed a lacy framework of interlocking white tubes that were almost nauseating in complexity.

My classmates were crouched in similar positions, armed with ten colors of pencil and sketching away. I spied Hannah with her friends, huddled around a stand of purple asters with her mother peering over her shoulder, and then Aaron, his hand moving in rapid, giant arcs over the page as he stood in front of a dandelion patch. He wore a striped short-sleeved t-shirt even though it had to have been sixty-five, and I noticed with distaste that it was far too small, riding up to show his ribs when he stretched his arm.

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As the sun moved higher in the sky, it poked a few long fingers through the canopy and rested them on the ground in warm little pools of syrupy light. Lunchtime was approaching with my book mostly blank. A strange sense of paralysis had come over me; I felt acutely how extraneous I was there – a ghost child, prone to making myself disappear. Feeling my stomach gurgle, I quietly unclasped my lunchbox and peered inside at the lunch my older brother had packed for me before he left early for middle school. There, in one corner, was half of a sleeve of crackers wrapped in brown waxed paper.

To my horror, a soundless sob slowly overtook my face and held it in a rictus. I had bad lunches and no lunches before, but now? On a field trip?

There wasn’t anything else? I was hopeless, embarrassed, angry. I was one wish, embodied -to be normal. From long before the word snapped onto my mute, infant understanding, I knew I was poor. And I knew there was one rule about poorness: though it might hover above, below, around, within, though it might terrorize y our thoughts and pain your body, you could never, ever look it in the eye or say its name. No one knew what could happen.

My shoulders shook, curving around an emptiness in the middle of me. But behind me, I heard light footsteps approaching, snapping small sticks. Maybe it was a bear and the bear would eat me. The footsteps came near and then stopped. I heard swishing and rustling, but I couldn’t let myself look, lest I be seen. My swollen eyes were hot under my cupped hands.

My heaving ribs slowly abated.

The footsteps retreated, and cautiously, I turned around just in time to see Aaron’s striped torso dissolving into the woods, plastic shopping bag in hand. I thought for a moment about his small clothes, his dirty hair, and I looked at my own

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dingy sneakers. A foil packet rested on a log. I ripped open a corner and placed a purple fruit snack on my tongue, letting it melt into a puddle of gluey sweetness. I fished out another with my forefinger and thumb and carefully placed it back on the log, where one by one, ecstatic ants discovered its saccharine perfection and rushed to claim an angle from which to consume it.

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BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

CREATIVE NONFICTION | JESSICA WIGGINS

CANYON VOICES

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | AUBREY RYCHEN

To My Giving Tree

By Aubrey Rychen

I often compare my mother to the Giving Tree from the book by Shel Silverman. She gives up the fruits she bares, the leaves she grows, and the bark that makes her stand tall. She buds when her family is safe, and blooms when they are happy.

As children, my siblings and I took the kindness of my mother for granted, never fully understanding the selflessness and dedication in which she put us first. We would ask my mother to share the desserts given to her or steal her drink because everything always tasted better from her cup. Sometimes she would jokingly tease us about it, but in the end, she would smile at us with her dark olive-green eyes and offer whatever item she had without a second thought.

My mother is a Giving Tree and every time she gave to her family, she was happy.

“And the boy loved the tree.......very much. And the tree was happy.”

“Would the Alligator group please come back to the horseshoe table,” Miss Clark called from the back of the room, shuffling the papers from the last reading session as a herd of students returned to their desks. The Tiger group, I acknowledged absentmindedly.

Everyone was separated into reading teams, each named after some exotic animal to make reading feel like an adventure; I was in the Leopard group, the one for the average to low reading level.

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I turned to the girl next to me. Her skin was tan, and she had warm, dark brown hair and eyes.

She radiated a familiar warmth and sense of security. Amongst all the strangers in the room, she was the anchor fastening me to the ground, preventing me from drifting in the endless sadness and anxiety of my feelings and new environment.

“Do we have to remember all of this?” I asked worryingly, chewing my lip as I glanced at the worksheet, I was having trouble filling out.

“Well,” my new friend considered me as she looked up from her nearly filled paper, “I think it’s really good to know all your phone numbers and where you live. Just in case of an emergency.”

Looking down at my worksheet, I scrunched my eyebrows at the bits of pink eraser lying on the off-white sheet of paper. A testament to my incompetence. I glanced down at the question I was trying to answer: What is your address? I couldn’t remember how to spell Vista or Paseo. I was pretty sure they weren’t even words in the English language. I had just moved into my new house last month, and everything on this side of town is unfamiliar, even if it is just 40 minutes from the house I grew up in. How was I supposed to know where I live?

My address. Home. Where I wanted to be instead of this strange school in this strange classroom with these strange

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people. “I guess,” I answered hollowly, returning my gaze to the alarmingly blank worksheet. The longer I stared at my paper, the more I began to think. To think about how I didn’t want to be here, and how lonely I felt in this crowd of people.

“Aubrey?” my friend’s eyes were wide with concern as I looked up at her from the corner of my eye, afraid to face her.

She must have seen something in my face—fear or pain—because she moved her hand to my shoulder and whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”

Everything seemed cold, deprived of the warmth I was familiar with at home. I wished my mother could be with me, rubbing my back and encouraging me to be brave. Be brave. Be brave. I repeated the mantra in my head, hoping it would be a dam for the tears that were threatening to spill.

“I-I need to stop crying,” I wiped furiously at my face, desperately trying to hide the evidence of my emotional breakdown in the middle of the quiet classroom. “I don’t know why this is happening.”

I couldn’t cry. It would only attract more attention, and I didn’t need any more as the new girl. First graders didn’t cry for their moms, and definitely not in front of their peers. Without her, the world was large and unknown and there wasn’t anything tethering me to the ground. It felt like I was standing on the precipice of a cliff as my feet gingerly shifted closer to the edge, my stomach churning at the inevitable fall. It was this thought that released the first tear.

Then another.

And another.

And soon, there were wet streaks dripping down my cheeks and salt bleeding and blurring the graphite numbers on the paper past recognition.

Sniffling, I took the sleeve of the coat I brought to ward off the autumn wind and freezing classrooms and dried my eyes with it.

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“It’s okay,” she murmured again. “It’s okay to be sad and miss your mom.” This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Miss Clark had purposely moved me by the welcoming girl because she knew she was one of the few students who would comfort me. “It’s halfway through the day, and then you’ll be able to see her again.”

I truly appreciated her kindness and support with my anxiety about coming to a new school. It had been a month, but I still couldn’t adjust. The thought released a choked sob from my mouth, which I muffled with my hand. Would things get better? I missed my home. I missed my mom.

“Aubrey…” she was starting to look really concerned now, glancing over to Miss Clark at the horseshoe table. Our teacher was still going through our reading book with the Alligator group.

I ducked my head. I hated this. I hated that I had to move here, how I couldn’t just stay home with my mom and little

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sister. I hated that everything felt unfamiliar and that I was the new kid. I hated change. But most of all, I hated that I felt the way I did. Was I too emotional?

Distraught? I questioned if I was losing it.

My friend must have sent some signal to Miss Clark because the next thing I know, my teacher is touching my back and bending down to my ear. “Come on, do you want to talk about it?” I nodded my head yes—anything to get away from the curious eyes of my classmates. Miss Clark guided me to the small room that connects our classroom with the neighboring one and bent down to grab my arms.

The situation felt ridiculous and out of control, and the humiliation of it made me cry harder.

I grabbed at the silver necklace that dangled on my chest, the one my mother let me borrow. It felt like my only anchor.

“But time went by. And the boy grew older. And the tree was often alone.”

I was a young girl sitting on my grandmother’s lap with my little sister by my side, the chattering of adults in the other room drowned out by my childish giggles. I think it was my dad’s 50th birthday.

The dim light from the ceiling of our small living room reflected off my grandmother’s wire-rimmed glasses, her auburn hair a twister framing her thin, tan face. She bounced us on her leg. Her undivided attention was on me and Amy.

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Her smile wide and her bottom teeth slightly crooked. She looked like my mom. It’s one of the most distinctive memories I have of her. A flash in time that I see with such clarity as if it were a photograph taken mid-laugh.

After that night, I never saw her again.

There was never one moment when my mother sat me down and explained why Grandma Pati wouldn’t visit anymore.

Over the years, my mom slowly revealed the complexity of her and my grandmother's relationship. She was never one to hide the truth.

I knew my mom didn’t have the best situation at home when she grew up. Her mom had her at 15 years old, and her parents weren’t particularly the most nurturing. She told me stories about how she bounced between high schools because her parents were divorced and living in different states. Her stepmother was cruel, always accusing her of lying, and shaming her at every opportunity.

The only way to escape her home life was to take mass amounts of AP classes and distract herself with homework, extracurricular activities, and a job.

“Do you not talk to your mom because you’re mad at each other?” I asked my mom one day when I was 10, furrowing my eyebrows in concentration. Why can’t you guys just say sorry? I thought to myself, remembering all the times my mom and I fought.

“No, that’s not it,” she replied as she wrapped her arms around me, her head

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resting on my shoulder. “I would love to see her again.”

“Then why don’t you just call her?”

“Aubrey, my mother hasn’t had the easiest life. She went through a lot of similar stuff I went through, but she never tried to work out her past.” I silently wondered if my grandmother’s lack of help is what drove my mom to become so serious about counseling and working out our problems. “Because she chose not to face all her issues, she stayed in the same situation and surrounded herself with bad people. She married a man while I was still living with her. He wasn’t nice, and he did a lot of bad stuff.

When I grew up and married your dad, I was hesitant to invite my mom and him to the house. But I wanted to see my mom and give him a chance.”

“This was at the old house? When I was five?” I clarified, thinking back to the last time I remembered seeing my grandmother. I don’t remember seeing my mother’s stepfather at my father’s 50th birthday, but then again, I don’t recall much from the party.

“Yes. But he did something he wasn’t supposed to do, and I was scared you guys were going to get hurt.” My mother brushed my hair away from my forehead.

If I hadn’t been paying attention, I wouldn’t have noticed my mom stiffening, her voice taking on a fighting edge. “I told my mom that she could come and visit, but my stepfather Danny couldn’t come. She came alone for your father’s surprise birthday party, but she refused to come without him after that.”

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“So she never visited you because you said it wasn’t safe for her husband to be around us?” I turned to look at my mom in the eyes, confused as to how a mother could treat her child in such a way. My mind was trying to put a puzzle together, but it felt like there were pieces missing.

“Yes. She chose her husband over me, but I don’t regret my decision.” She looked me over with fierce love. “You guys are my first priority, and it’s my job to keep you safe.”

For years, this was the story I got—a picture with puzzle piece shaped holes.

However, every time I heard the story, I asked my mom if she regretted her decision, and she would reply with a strong no.

It was Mother’s Day when I saw my mom’s resolve crack for the first time. I was in Sunday school when she came to the classroom to pick me up. Church service had only begun 30 minutes ago, and I grew worried. Amy and I quietly followed her out of the church, and she wouldn’t meet either of our eyes.

At age 12, I took advantage of my new rights of sitting shotgun and I slammed the car door behind me. Amy buckled herself in the backseat. We pulled out of the parking lot, and I studied the profile of my mother’s face. Her lips were pursed, and eyes red around the edges.

“Mom?” I asked tentatively, “What happened? Why are you sad?”

She glanced over, and then burst into a fit of sobs, each more miserable than the

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first. I waited, scared of what could’ve hurt my mom so much. Even though my mind was racing with questions and possibilities, I was silenced by this window of vulnerability. I held my tongue and hushed my thoughts and let my mother weep. After a few minutes, her tears slowed to gentle trickles down her cheeks.

In church they were talking about mothers, she sniffled, gripping the steering wheel in a vice grip. I don’t know why, but it just really hit me hard today.

Mother’s Day. For me, it was an exciting day — one where I got to celebrate how amazing and giving mine was. I forgot that not everyone had a loving mother.

I’ve never really had a mother, and it’s just something that I miss. Something I never had. Her voice quivers as another wave of tears begins. I’ve never really had a mother’s love.

I got angry. How could one of the most loving, kind people not have a mother that cared? My mom’s such an amazing, natural mother that I forgot she never had parents that put her needs first.

I imagined my mom as a little girl, my age, all alone, with no mom to hold her when she cried. No mom to comfort her when she was afraid, or to tell her secrets to. No mom that she knew would love her no matter what simply because she was her daughter. I imagined her like I felt in my new classroom all those years ago— like nothing was tethering you to the ground besides that one chain of silver bestowed to you by your safety net.

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Except she didn’t have a home to go to.

She was alone.

I cried with her.

“And she loved a boy very, very much—even more than she loved herself.”

One in five young girls is sexually abused.

Seven out of ten sexual abuse cases are committed by someone known to the victim. My mother was one of them. So was her mother.

As this information soaked in, many of the stories my mom told me suddenly had context. The protective nature my mom had towards her kids when Danny was brought up — a child predator who had hurt my mom when she was young. The comparisons my mother drew between herself and Grandma Pati—both victims to someone they knew: Grandma Pati abused by her father, and my mother abused by the same man. The blind eye Grandma Pati turned when the cycle continued when her new husband abused my mother. An endless pattern of shame and secrets. An endless pattern of shame and secrets my mother was determined to break. And break it she did.

Though I had always been convinced that my mother was brave, I now knew that she was strong. She was resilient.

Unshakeable. A tree rooted to the earth with endurance and grit.

I had known that family dysfunction passes on from generation to generation, more often than not if intervention does

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not occur. It made sense that it happened with my grandmother and mother.

One day I eventually asked my mother how she broke the cycle of her family, and how she raised her kids completely different than the way she was raised.

Her answer was simple: she loved us. I’m not sure if she fully understands how she had the strength to just stop—to understand and have the determination to change everything she knew as a child.

My mother was kicked out of her house at 18, and she struggled to find her way in life without the help of her parents.

When my mom was 20, she married her first husband. The marriage itself was a dysfunctional mess; a case of emotional abuse in itself. Her husband was never there, both physically and emotionally.

He was an alcoholic and drug dealer. A ghost of what a husband should be.

So when my mom told me the story of my older sister’s birth, I didn’t have a doubt in my mind that she was telling the truth.

The first time that I held Ashly was the first time I had ever felt true love. I like to believe that’s when everything changed for my mom. The touch of a mother’s love for her child.

It wasn’t until years later that my mom met my dad. They got married, and my dad happily took on my mom’s three kids as his own with love and devotion. After that, me and my sister came along. We were a blended family that fused together to make a home.

The cycle was coming to a close.

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"I want a house to keep me warm," he said. "I want a wife and I want children, and so I need a house. Can you give me a house?"

"I have no house," said the tree. "The forest is my house, but you may cut off my branches and build a house. Then you will be happy."

And so the boy cut off her branches and carried them away to build his house.

And the tree was happy.

“You do realize we’re all adults, right?”

Taylor insisted disbelievingly, his eyes tracking our mom’s busy hands as she dished out his dinner plate. “We can get our own food.”

“Technically I’m not. I have two years left of my childhood,” I said around a spoonful of stew, careful not to get the broth on my paperback book gripped in my left hand. Unlike all my friends, I wasn’t looking forward to all the new responsibilities that came with adulthood.

“Well, I practically am,” Amy raised her eyebrows, a smirk playing across her lips.

“I’m pretty much one of the most mature people in this room, let’s be honest.”

“Amy…you’re 14.” Ashly rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, but basically.”

Smiling at our banter, my mother stood behind the countertop, ladle hanging in the air, stew dripping back into the crockpot. My mom wasted no time preparing supper, ignoring my brother’s sigh as she finished scooping up my little

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sister’s dinner. Adding the right amount of salt, pepper, and hot sauce, she handed Amy her dinner, just the way she liked it.

It’s impressive, really, the way my mom can memorize the entire family’s food preferences and prepare them perfectly as if it were as easy as remembering our eye colors. She always makes sure that there’s something for everyone at dinner, especially since we are all picky eaters.

“Mooooom,” Taylor drew out in complaint, although it’s clear by she pulled corn tortilla chips from the cupboard. “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish all of this anyway.” She easily saw through my fabrication.

“Oh, no, it’s fine Aubrey,” my mom waved off, dumping a generous amount of chips on a plate followed by half a bag of shredded cheese. “I’m just gonna have some nachos. Go ahead and eat your food.”

Even though I knew she chose to skip dinner because she doesn’t like stew, I wondered why she would cook something for the family that she hated.

“It’s not a big deal.”

There’s something in her light tone that I couldn’t place. Despite her happy demeanor and the fact that she was about to eat her beloved nachos, I heard an echo of longing. Of what, I wasn’t sure.

It’s not until years later that I can finally place the underlying emotions in her tone that night. The hidden cadence that reveals her desire to be acknowledged

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and be taken care of herself in the midst of her own selflessness.

"I don't need very much now," said the boy, "just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired."

"Well," said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could, "well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest."

And the boy did.

And the tree was happy.

My mother is a daycare provider, so it makes sense that she’s used to doing almost everything for the toddlers and babies she looks after. Taking care of people and serving them has grown habitual for her over the last 27 years, and I know she doesn’t mind doing things for us. In her own way, it’s how she shows us she loves us. It was her way of showing kindness, lending her time and energy to make the lives of those she cared for easier.

I knew that many kids didn’t have a mom like her and that I was pretty lucky to have such a selfless, caring mother. She would take the time to sit by me and help me talk through my problems, patiently listening as I explained the ridiculous fight I had with my high school friend. I could always count on her for listening ears and wise advice. She would listen with enthusiasm as I recounted the plot to the book I was currently enthralled with, and she would detail her own book just as excitingly in return. I would lay my Issue 17

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head against her petite shoulder, the smell of sunlight and vanilla rolling off her skin and melting my stormy emotions away. My mother was constant, loving, and giving of her time. She was my world.

And so the boy cut down her trunk and made a boat and sailed away. And the tree was happy ... but not really.

Crowded against the far-right rustcolored wall lays a twin set of black leather couches, slick cloth that reflects the yellow glow of the lamp from above.

Although the leaves from the trees outside were long gone due to the frigid winter, the mahogany ceiling fan twirled and shook as the blades went around and around.

I shifted from my place on the couch, hand bracing against the cool black material of its arm. As I settled back down, I flipped the dry, cream pages of the book I was reading. The smell and taste of coffee filled the living room as my older brother poured himself a cup of hazelnut coffee, his monkey coffee cup making a soft thud on the brown marble kitchen counter of the adjoining room.

My mind wandered to the rest of the family, wondering if my dad was checking his fantasy football scores or if Amy was still binge-watching Once Upon a Time.

My eyes flickered from my brother back to my book as he left to go back to his room, a packaged brownie hanging from his mouth.

“Aubrey?” My mom sat on the other couch, her reading glasses propped on

CANYON VOICES

her nose and legs curled up with a blanket as she looked at her iPad mini.

“Yeah, mom?” I asked, still focused on the story in front of me.

“I need help getting my free book from the library.” I looked up from my book Passenger by Alexandra Bracken, just getting to the part where Nicholas and Etta had just jumped through their first time-travel passage together. My mother’s eyebrows were scrunched together in concentration as she used her pointer finger to jab the screen, frowning when her attack on the glass didn’t work.

“Mom, you’re getting pretty aggressive there with the screen,” I joked as I set my book down and shuffled to the other black leather couch. I sat next to her, our shoulders touching and reached out for the small device.

“Can you help me order my free book?” she asked as she looked over at me, “’ll pay you five bucks for your help.”

“Mom, that’s not necessary.” I sighed, and she hummed in concentration as she watched me copy and paste the long code that was emailed to her into the submission box on the Maricopa Reads library site. Perhaps her offer would’ve been funny if I hadn’t known she’d been dead serious. She’d paid my little sister like that more than once. My mother has this ridiculous notion that she needs to pay us every time she asks for a favor. As if you have to pay someone for kindness.

“Really, I’ll pay you.” My mom insisted, turning her face so she was looking at my

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profile as I worked on the iPad. I quietly shook my head and selected the book she picked out and pressed Submit.

I look down at the fallen leaves on the ground that people have failed to notice or gather.

“Voilà,” I announced dramatically, whisking the iPad back into her hands.

“Your free book has been ordered.”

“Leave them,” the tree tells me, “and go and play.” Instead, I pick up the leaves, put them in my basket, and bring them home. I tuck them away in special places that remind me of her and her love.

“Thanks, Aubrey, you’re awesome.” My mother stared transfixed at the screen, not quite believing that I had completed the order with such haste and finesse. I told her it was no problem and went back to my book. My mother couldn’t have looked more excited, and I didn’t understand how such a simple favor meant so much to her.

My mother is my Giving Tree. Her trunk is strong and sturdy, rooted to the ground with a stubbornness that cannot be shaken. Her branches, although small and slender, hold up the leaves and fruits she bares without complaint nor protest.

She provides me with shade as I grow, generously offering whatever she can to help me succeed and feel loved. She is consistency, stability, home. When storms cloud the sky, threatening to twist and tear the tree, she holds her ground with strength and faith.

She is not untouchable and leaves dance to the ground in a sad waltz as the wind wages a war against anxiety and worry.

She is used to standing alone, slowly losing leaves battle after battle. She does not weaken nor fall.

It’s spring when I find her, and my love for the tree is only a bud to what it will become. Her strength is beauty, courage.

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Her Jane Eyre book, in her favorite scene where the house gets set on fire. Her love for reading.

The pocket of her old dress that hangs in her closet. Her willingness to share clothes with me.

The coffee pot that sits on our kitchen counter. Her caffeine addiction that I inherited from her.

The old copy of Goodnight Moon she used to read to me. Her presence when I was a child.

Her life is inscribed on these leaves, tokens I hold close to my heart. And each time I see these leaves, I remember the inspiration she fills me with, and the strength she gives me to lead a life of love and happiness.

They are a reminder of my Giving Tree, and what I hope to become when I’m a mother.

But until then I give up the fruits I bare, the leaves I grow, and the bark that makes me stand tall. I provide my mother and family shade when they need rest, and laughter when they need comfort. I bud when my family is safe, and bloom when they are content.

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For the original publication and information on author Aubrey Rychen, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 17

CANYON VOICES

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | DINA JUAN

Totoy

By Dina Juan

Sixto Domingo has just turned ninetyone, but he still sneaks away after lunch to smoke his favorite Benson & Hedges Menthols. After every dinner, when he has reluctantly but dutifully taken every pill and tablet and his two inhalers, he has a shot of Chivas Regal. His doctors are baffled by his good health and his resilience, even more so by his wit and attitude. He has outlived two of them and likes to point out this fact when he is ordered to stop his indulgences. After all, no one orders Sixto to do anything.

saw the older man do. His lungs filled up with smoke just as his family’s house had the time his mother forgot about the pot of rice. He had been napping against the tree outside when he saw her and his sisters running out, coughing, and crying out for him to get water.

“Hoy, Totoy! Naningarilyo ka ba?” Mang Ernie leaned out of the passenger side of his Jeepney and inhaled deeply, the end of his menthol turning red. He sighed and out came a balloon of smoke, filling the space between their cars. Despite the heavy Manila heat, Mang Ernie wore an ironed button-down shirt and khakis every day. It was refreshing to see him after sitting with all of the other Jeepney drivers in their torn, sweaty shirts and dusty flip-flips. Mang Ernie was the one who convinced the boss to let Totoy drive one of his Jeepneys, even though he was barely fourteen years old.

Mang Ernie came over and thumped him on the back, laughing, “Dahan dahan lang, ‘toy!” He took the cigarette and held it between his middle and pointer finger. Raising his brows like a teacher would at a misbehaved student, he waited until Sixto finished coughing before slowly taking another drag.

“Oo naman!” Totoy exclaimed as if offended that one would ask. He grabbed the cigarette from Mang Ernie’s outstretched hand and inhaled just as he

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He coughed out what felt like his lungs themselves while laughing at the memory, vaguely aware of the dull ache below his chest, beyond the shock of the smoke. It had been almost a year since he last saw them.

“Dahan dahan lang. Or as the Americans say: Take it ‘eeeaaaazzzzy,’” Mang Ernie said after he exhaled gently, cocking his eyebrows like Marlon Brando and smirking his Hollywood smirk. Sixto saw him use this face whenever he pulled up to the college; the girls would crowd his Jeepney and giggle wildly over his smile.

Sometimes, in the small, crowded tenement he shared with four other young men, Sixto would practice cocking up the corner of his lip and raising his eyebrows just like that.

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“Take it eeeeeaaazy,” he would say, exhaling.

Seventy-seven years of menthols in his lungs, and yet he still plays harmonica and ukulele and belts out “My Way” whenever he has a chance.

When he sings in his shaky vibrato, we watch with concern in case his voice gives in and breaks into coughing. But he never wavers and finishes the high note like Frank Sinatra in his prime.

He has a tattoo on his left arm. When it’s warm enough and he wears short-sleeve shirts, one could see a glimpse of the capital “T.” Totoy. It was his name before he was our grandpa. His name when he drove a motorcycle and had a gun and wore leather jackets. He was a traffic cop in Manila and helped build the neighborhood where both my parents grew up.

Saniboy Street was a dirt path when he moved there from the provinces with Delia -- it didn’t even have a name. A cluster of homes lining one of the paths between the market and the river.

But he went to city hall and demanded that his children live in a neighborhood with a name and cemented ground. And so, it was done, and he built the place where families grew, and children played, and young people fell in love.

The ground was cemented and there was a shiny new sign at both ends of the street, one facing the busy market and one at the edge of the river, sa kanto at sa ilog.

“Mahal, si Mang Ernie nagwawala!” Delia came running down the street, her bright pink dress flapping in the rare August breeze. Her long, black hair hung down the sides of her face like the vines of a banyan tree. Sixto stood at the front doorway and stared, the sound of her voice garbled. They had been married for almost seventeen years, but the flush of her cheeks and

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the flecks of brown in her eyes still captivated him.

“HOY!” She yelled, pushing his shoulder and breaking the spell. Despite her four-foot-eleven stature, birthing and raising nine children had made Delia strong enough to make it hurt. “Si Mang Ernie!”

Shaken, Sixto ran to the adjacent neighborhood where Mang Ernie now lived, too old and broken and drunk to drive the Jeepney. The older man sat on a plastic chair in front of his cemented single room. Empty amber bottles surrounded his feet like shackles.

“Nasaan si Elvie?” He demanded, whipping his head to the side to look for his wife.

Manang Elvie had left Ernie about ten years ago, after she met a handsome American man and ran off to California with their children. Afterwards, Ernie had begun showing up to the Jeepney lot reeking of stale whiskey and barely able to recognize the other drivers. The girls had stopped giggling when they saw him, and soon the owner of the lot simply turned Ernie away.

“Wala na sya,” Sixto said, angry. Manang Elvie was gone, had been gone for a long time. Ernie had spoken about going to California like their other friends had done and working on the fields and making enough money to win her back. In their letters, their friends wrote that California was endless miles of fruit trees, so abundant that one could stop on the highway and pick them.

Ernie promised Sixto that he would go to the embassy and get his visa so that he could cross the water to his love.

Sixto had come to Manila when he was barely a man and had built a career and a neighborhood for himself; he was a successful man. And

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successful men have successful family and friends, but here Ernie sat in a drunken stupor, unable to stand up and do anything about the love and life stolen from him. His greatest friend and mentor, on a broken plastic stool, his round belly poking out of his worn shirt and his feet covered in empty bottles. The site of the wasted man tore an ache in Sixto’s stomach; he would not allow his children or his children’s children to see this brokenness.

When he came to California, he was alone. He ate at a donut shop where he was Tony instead of Totoy or Sixto and found work when he could.

His hands grew calloused and hard from picking grapes and oranges and cherries and strawberries, and when he saw them, he wondered when they would hold Delia again. “’ Tay, kailan ka uuwi?” Darius, the littlest of the nine, would ask on the phone when it was his time to talk. Long-distance was expensive, so each child was limited to one minute. Sixto sighed and promised Darius that he would send for them soon, and they could come and eat all the grapes and oranges they wanted.

When it came to Delia, who had allowed herself five minutes on the call, Sixto would break down.

She was not used to talking on the phone and often shouted, her voice bracing and strong.

Limited by five minutes, Sixto would try to fit everything he could about his passing life: the strikes on the field, the nice lady he met in San Francisco who let him and some others sleep in her apartment on the weekends, the tender steak he would have once a month at a shop down the street. And then he would as if he could come home, if she could forget this whole plan and if they could live on Saniboy and just ignore the broken people.

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Here, Delia would speak in the stern voice reserved for little Darwin and Darius when they refused to get haircuts or help with the dishes.

She told Sixto to keep picking fruit and eating steak and saving money to send all ten of his family members across the Pacific.

Over the next decade, he brought his family in groups of two’s and three’s, until finally, everyone was here. He found work in a machine shop that built airplane parts and smoked his Benny & Hedges menthols and overtime he became Grandpa to fourteen grandkids.

When everyone was safely in California and went to public school and ate McDonalds and giggled in English, Sixto felt it was finally time to go back and see what had become of his friend. He had heard rumors from relatives and friends that Mang Ernie was caught in between his love for the drink and his love for his lost wife. He would saunter around the neighborhood in his Sunday’s best, saying in his broken English that he was going to California.

“Mang Ernie?” Sixto whispered into the dark, damp room. It reeked of beer and bitter dreams.

The old man lay on the cot in the corner, wearing his ruined and stained suit.

Ernie lifted his head and giggled, a low gurgle in his voice. He slurred something at Sixto and waved his hand in the air, motioning for him to come closer. Sixto had brought a small bag of American food and medicine and placed it at the foot of the cot. He sat on the worn plastic stool, amazingly still intact, and held his best friend’s hand.

When he first got to California, he tried writing to Ernie. He would call the neighbors and beg them to bring him to the phone, but he refused.

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Sixto finally gave up, simply hoping that the man would still be there when he did come back.

And he was. Barely. Ernie motioned towards the case of cigarettes on the kitchen table. Sixto gave him one and lit it, watching the old man lift it to his lips with a shaky hand.

“Take it eeeeaaaazy.” Ernie coughed out before he took a long drag, smiling up lazily. Sixto smiled back and stood. He stared at his old friend for a moment, then left.

Several months after, Sixto got a letter from Ernie’s estranged children stating that he had passed away. Sixto did not go back to the Philippines after that visit. He kept in touch with his friends over the years, only called Totoy on the phone or through a letter. The wrinkles on his face deepened and the lenses on his glasses seemed to grow thicker. No one called him Totoy anymore.

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He refused to stop working until finally, a few years ago, his health began to decline, and he needed a cane to stay upright when he walked.

He still eats at the donut shop where the aging owners call him Tony and give him the freshest glazed donut and coffee. During Christmas and Thanksgiving, he sits in the center of the family with a harmonica in his lap, surrounded by us.

We ask him about his life as Totoy and his life as Tony and he tells us. The tattoo is faded because of the years and hidden under his long-sleeve shirt and wool sweater, but we feel its presence as a reminder of the life before us.

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For the original publication and information on author Dina Juan, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 18

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | SOPHIA STEUBER

Unspoken Memories

By Sophia Steuber

October 21st, 2011. The day after our car crash, I went to school and didn’t tell anyone about what happened. My group of friends stood outside of our class before school, chatting about homework and annoying siblings, and I stood smiling, pretending nothing was wrong as if my mom and I hadn’t stood shaking in the rain the night before, while our totaled car got towed to an impound lot.

I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t say anything.

It’s not that it was too horrible to utter— the rain made sure it hurt the cars more than the people—yet it felt simultaneously too big and too small to say in the open. How would I even say it?

So, I got in a car accident last night. We hydroplaned and took two cars with us.

No one got hurt besides our Mazda. Why even say anything?

I didn’t speak in the minutes after the crash, either. When my mom scrambled to deflate her airbag and hazy smoke curled through the sudden quiet, the driver of the car we hit appeared at our window. His eyes were clear, his brows furrowed in concern as he tapped his knuckles against my mom’s door.

Breathing slow, she popped it open, and the man asked the same question my mom had asked me moments after impact: “Are you okay?”

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It smelled of humidity and burnt hair, and tears striped my cheeks, sobs stifled into my fist. My mom answered for the both of us while I cried in the back seat— not because I was in pain. I just couldn’t stop, too embarrassed to uncover my face in front of this stranger.

Police lights split the darkness, lighting rain-streaked windows red. While my mom stepped out of the car to speak to the other victims, I still had my seatbelt on.

“Are you okay?” the officer asked, after, when my mom was on the phone and we stood huddled on the sidewalk beside the wreckage. I couldn’t answer, and I felt dumb for it.

So began my silence.

I expected to feel worse after—shaken, aching, unable to focus. But it was my mom that wasn’t taking it well. She spoke of her sore neck and her nightmarecrowded sleep, and I was caught between wanting attention and feeling selfish for wanting it. I see now that the oscillation kept me silent in the moments after the crash, at school the day after, with my friends when they asked after my family.

As always, my mom filled the empty spaces. She’s the best talker I know, a skill she cultivated as a Kindergarten

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teacher at Foothills Elementary, wrangling five-year-olds in the day, consoling helicopter parents in the afternoon, and arguing with frivolous principals in her free time. With family and friends asking after the crash and our health, she was the first to hold my hand and recount that night, to smile and assure that yes, we’re okay; yes, Sophia’s okay. But she could only answer for me for so long—now she couldn’t even break the silence for herself.

She had planned to work until she would receive her full benefits, or at least until I graduated from Foothills—and she almost made it. One sick day turned to weeks of missed school, and with each day spent at home, the less she promised a return. Unable to work through her PTSD, she retired in April of my eighthgrade year, two months before my graduation.

I was left to tell my teachers, who knew me since I was born, that my mom was sick. I doubt they believed the story. They knew my mom longer than I was alive: weeks of absence in the middle of the year suggested something much worse than an ambiguous “sickness.” But what could I say? No one in my family would even utter the words depression or PTSD. The euphemisms and tip-toeing was ominous, considering other family members’ histories with depression. You would think this, of all things, would be something we could talk about.

But it wasn’t that my family didn’t know what depression was. It was that depression seemed antithetical to my mom’s personality.

CANYON VOICES

The night of the crash, we were driving home from school at 7 P.M. because my mom cares voraciously. I would be stuck in her classroom from three o’clock to seven as she made lesson plans, graded papers, and prepared worksheets for the next day. Of course, this chronic overworking wasn’t for a hefty paycheck; she just wanted the best for her students, and you could say it paid off in connections. We can’t go out in public without a past student recognizing her, somehow recalling a “Mrs. Steuber!” as soon as they spot her black hair and floral tops, perhaps too petite, too Chinese, and too charismatic to be forgotten amongst an otherwise monotonous school. She doesn’t always remember their name in return, but she always recalls a family, a characteristic, an anecdote.

So, it was strange, the weeks after the crash when my mom stopped getting out of bed. It was an overnight transformation, PTSD from the crash mooring her to her mattress. Every morning, I would go to her room before school, navigating through the darkness to lay in the bed beside her. I never knew what to say. Instead, I’d touch her hair and her sleep warm shoulder, whispering hello as morning light barred her bedroom walls. The silence was so vast, and I had no idea how to fill it. Helpless, I quietly wondered if she’d be like this forever.

These memories have faded to chiffon thinness. I don’t remember the details. I only remember my mom turning away from me into her pillows.

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It was four months of this, exchanging monosyllabic conversations with my mom, asking her the compulsory “how are you feeling?” in place of an evident “are you okay?” My family has never talked about it, not even after my mom found the right combination of medication and rediscovered herself.

How could we talk about it when we couldn’t even call it what it is?

Meanwhile, Nelson and I sat on the couch, with the Olympics running in the background.

We continued in silence.

But as much as we confronted the loss as a family, I didn’t see or talk to my friends about my grandpa until months after his passing. What would I say? My grandpa died. It’s been a hard summer. It felt insurmountable. I still hadn’t told anyone about the crash, or about my mom’s depression forcing her into retirement. I didn’t know how to talk about my life without feeling insignificant, attentionseeking, too emotional, and not emotional enough. I still don’t. Sure, I’d had a bad year, but my mom had a worse year, so was it bad enough to voice?

Because at the end of the day, I wasn’t the victim of the crash, and I wasn’t the victim of anything that came afterward. I figured I was okay, anyway. I should learn to take up less space.

Nine months after the car crash, two months after my mom’s full recovery, my grandpa Chin passed away. My brother and I were in the living room, watching the Olympics’ women’s backstroke when the landline rang. Down the hall in the den, my mom answered the phone.

The women’s arms cut through the water in arcs, sending up spray while the crowd cheered, and the announcers droned. As the women kicked off for their last lap, my mom’s voice splintered the announcers’ low drawl. “What?” I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if my mom’s voice didn’t crack, abrupt, and strangled. Exchanging a glance with Nelson, I walked down the hall out of curiosity rather than alarm, and I didn’t stop until I saw my mom red-faced, tearstained. “Grandpa’s dead,” she said, phone at her side. Blunt. No more euphemisms.

There was nothing to say. My mom got ready to leave for my grandparents’ house, moving between rooms with glossy cheeks and the phone gripped in her hand. My dad was with her, at least.

He knew what to say.

CANYON VOICES

He put his arm around me, but I wasn’t crying yet. This was not something my family could ignore. We had to answer tough questions about the funeral and my grandma’s future. Forced conversation made it easier to grieve.

I missed my chance, I think. It all happened too long ago to cry about now and too recent to pretend I’ve forgotten.

Too much wanting and not wanting. Too many unanswered questions and misfilled spaces. I should have broken the silence when I had the chance.

Three months ago, the car crash came up at dinner, one story among dozens exchanged between extended family. An uncle’s truck morphed into a cousin’s

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crash which morphed into our totaled Mazda and my mother attempting to remember the details, so long ago now.

While cousins and uncles interrogated her, I sat nauseated with a memory I so rarely let myself relive. What happened?

Where were you coming home from?

When did the police show up? Why were you alone?

My mom lit up with the memory—right, she laughed, she was coming home from school.

Of course, I was with her.

The words came easy for her then.

◼ ◼ ◼

For the original publication and information on author Sophia Steuber, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 19

She struggled to answer. “I was with you,” I said. Easily forgettable, I guess.

CANYON VOICES

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CREATIVE NONFICTION | DANIEL MATTHEWS

Exploring Family Myths

By Daniel Matthews

I don’t save documents – except for one letter I’ve kept my entire life. It was written 128 days after I was born, almost 30 years ago. It is from my paternal grandfather, hereafter known as Grandpa, and was our only direct communication. I was born in April 1990 just outside of Washington D.C. Meanwhile, he was in Arizona on the tail end of a bout with heart disease and lung cancer that would claim his life. We never met, and he only saw pictures of me, but as he lay there looking at a photo of his newborn grandson, he wrote the following letter: 25 Aug ‘90 Hey Dan – Got your pictures, you look good.

You look like you have it made in the shade. Your bathtub looks a little small, but you can make it do. Your great aunt Mary Elizabeth fell in love with you through your pictures.

Love Grandpa P.S. Write often.

Grandpa passed away shortly after he wrote this letter. He had not been kind to his body throughout his life, and neither had the military, as I later came to understand.

CANYON VOICES

Growing up with only a letter and stories, Lawrence Charles Matthews became something of a folk figure to me. A man who could both occupy a distinct place in my lineage and be the protagonist of inspirational, larger-than-life stories. He was the man who landed on Utah beach, fought in Battle of the Bulge, and liberated the Dachau concentration camp. But he was also the man with who I shared 25% of my DNA with, and who I could look up to when I was in search of guidance.

My father regularly repeated stories of Grandpa’s exploits in my childhood. His favorite story took place just after the Second World War when a Hitler Youth grabbed a rifle and shot Grandpa in the leg. Since peace had already been declared, my grandfather wasn’t eligible for a purple heart. Despite the bronze star award for valor he had earned previously in the war, not getting that purple heart always bothered him.

Grandpa chose to remain with the military after WWII ended, and a few years later moved his wife and young son, my father, to Frankfurt, Germany. They moved later to Missouri, then Japan. I’ve heard a few stories via my father about each location. About fishing trips along the rivers in Germany, racing cars in Missouri, and his prom on an American military base in Japan. I heard little more

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about Grandpa; his imperfections swept aside by his heroic contributions. The only story my older brothers would tell me was that he allowed them to shoot beer cans in the desert but wouldn’t include my older sister.

sharp dichotomy between stories and surroundings hit me. Reading plaques about the monstrosity on camp walls, juxtaposed with a gentle breeze and chirp of birds in the distance, is an emotional experience, to say the least.

He liberated Dachau, what else would I need to know?

Reflecting upon my experience at Sachsenhausen, I began to understand the colossal horror that was the Holocaust. The immeasurable terror experienced by those who underwent trauma after trauma because of their religion, sexuality, or ethnicity. I do not think I’ll ever truly be able to comprehend. It is something I will internalize. Preventing the same thing from happening again is something I will fight against every day of my life, with the help and inspiration of my grandpa.

Hearing something like that – your grandfather liberated a concentration camp – does not hold much weight when you’re seven and being told these stories by your older siblings.

Concentration camps are not on anyone’s radar at seven. I didn’t know what it was or what it meant to have liberated one. I knew my grandfather did it, and I knew people who knew about concentration camps were impressed. Otherwise, I had zero context for the feat. Moreover, when you grow up with this story in the backdrop, you just assume everyone else has something similar, so I didn’t exactly identify it as a value add. It took me about five years to begin to connect the dots.

I’ve visited concentration camps three times in my life, Dachau at 13, Sachsenhausen at 18, and Dachau again at 28.

I have no recollection of the first visit but have photo evidence and eyewitness accounts that I was there. It was a lot for a 13-year-old. That should tell you all you need to know about my feelings for that first time. The second visit to a concentration camp came five years later, just outside Berlin. This is when the

CANYON VOICES

My third visit came while on a trip to Munich with Arizona State University.

When I learned about the ASU trip to Germany, I was immediately interested knowing it would be an amazing trip and cultural opportunity. I looked at the itinerary and was taken aback by the Dachau visit. I wasn’t sure it was a place I wanted to revisit, but eventually decided it was worth the experience. I do not like discussing my family’s history with Dachau with the average person as, frankly, I feel that what my grandfather did 70 years ago doesn’t give me much standing for anything. The only thing it can really provide for me is a solid foundation for what I should be striving for and the people for whom I should be fighting. So, I took the plunge and chose to revisit those horrific grounds.

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As I enter the Dachau grounds for the second time, I begin to understand why my feelings are so complicated – this space is as much associated with my grandfather as the letter. In my eyes, it is a relic of his influence. In some ways, me visiting is a pilgrimage of one of the few places I knew he actually spent time, and more importantly, made a difference. It is something like how I look at his letter.

To visit another relic is something special.

You know your family is directly connected to the buildings, the grounds, and the history, but you didn’t really do anything. It is a strange sense of both pride and privilege. That second one is the worst to feel. To understand that there had been horrible atrocities committed here, that your family fought to stop it, and that you can be proud of that second bit while also understanding the first. It’s not an emotion they teach you to handle in grade school.

Most of the buildings were razed after the second World War, so not a lot remains.

The Americans used part of it as prisons directly after the war but most of that was destroyed as well. What remained was then built up for the museum. In some ways, it felt slightly forced, that they would rebuild buildings just so people could experience the terror of fascism again. But also, I felt that it was an important experience to feel the style of building, to walk down the halls of prisoners, looking at each locked door, imagining the horror of being a guard who didn’t want to comply, or even worse, a resident. So much of this museum is dedicated to “never again,” something I’ve been experiencing my entire life.

It is something you learn to cope with as an adult, however. We’ve been through a lot as a country in the past few years, and the idea of “Nazi” has been brought up more often than anyone would like.

Something that’s kept me sane and on the right path is the memory of my grandfather. The reminder that he was there at the beginning at Utah beach and fought until the job was done gives me the strength to fight now when I might otherwise have none. His image is a hero that I can look to in my darkest hours and find the light. My family doesn’t tolerate Nazis – we didn’t then, and we don’t now.

I know what I stand for and I stand for it strongly because of him.

In a way, it felt gross. In another way, it felt validating. The lesson for me has and always will be never again. However, another lesson was that people are capable of such monstrosities just by looking the other direction.

Being the grandson of one of the liberators of Dachau gives one something of an imposter syndrome when visiting.

CANYON VOICES

Throughout the Dachau tour, I found myself looking around for any evidence of the superhuman figure from my childhood. I looked through the pillars of the museum and combed the videos of American soldiers liberating the camp but couldn’t find anything. I found myself questioning whether or not there was value here for me personally. I found myself questioning the value of my family’s history. I then realized there was

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no actual evidence of my grandfather’s history here anywhere. It was all just a story told to me by my father. When I returned to the hotel, I called him and asked him why I couldn’t find any proof anywhere. That was when he told me the final truth about my grandfather’s experience in Dachau.

As it turns out, my grandfather actually was in Dachau during the liberation, but he was also involved in the extrajudicial killings of some of the guards there, and that weighed heavily on him for a long time, to the point where his wife, my grandmother, destroyed any evidence of the Dachau experience, as a way of protecting my grandfather. This was never something that had been brought up previously and was only revealed when I pushed for answers. All I knew was Grandpa liberated Dachau, end of story. This larger-than-life figure in my head, the man who could do no wrong, suddenly is experiencing human emotions and responses, not unlike PTSD. I now find myself not just revering a larger-than-life figure, but rather a human, who did his best, tried his hardest, and was hit with some severe consequences. He drank and smoked himself to a likely early grave, thus the letter.

however, I’d like to ignore some of his actions and deny my feelings about it to keep his hero story untainted.

Everyone has family lore, the idea that their grandfather or grandmother did this or that. The understanding is that we are all to accept at face value our own familial history without realizing the impact those experiences had on our ancestors.

Something I never considered is that my grandfather was a complicated person, someone who dealt with emotional issues and also did something amazing.

Perhaps that makes him an even more powerful figure, in that he was able to overcome and still contribute a great deal, with a legacy that will live on.

At the bottom of the letter I was sent, below Grandpa’s signature, reads the following: You are something else. Take care of yourself. We love you, Your great aunt Liz P.S. We’re taking good care of your granddad. He loves you very much.

◼ ◼ ◼

For the original publication and information on author Daniel Matthews, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 20

I find myself then somewhat at a crossroads, puzzled when it comes to my family lore. This is a man who I’ve never had the opportunity to meet, but whom I admire, who also violated prisoner of war conventions, killing men who were the enemy just hours earlier. I’ve heard great stories about him throughout my life;

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

Two

By Eugenie Carabastos

Characters: Bernadette: Female rag doll Benjamin: Male rag doll Setting: An old cardboard box, empty, except for the dolls.

AT RISE: (BENJAMIN lies on the floor, eyes closed.)

(BERNADETTE sidles over to him. She checks to see if he’s asleep.)

(BENJAMIN snores.)

(BERNADETTE celebrates silently, then tiptoes to her side of the box. She takes in a deep breath, places her hands on her head, and proceeds to try and rip it off, grunting along the way. It doesn’t work. She tries another position, grunts—no luck. She tries a third position, grunts, still nothing.)

(BENJAMIN opens his eyes.)

BENJAMIN: Not again.

(He rushes over to her.)

BENJAMIN: Stop! You don’t want Madeleine to find you like that.

BERNADETTE: I don’t care.

BENJAMIN: Don’t say that.

BERNADETTE: I don’t care. I’m sick of being in this box.

BENJAMIN: We’ve lived in a box before.

BERNADETTE: That wasn’t like this. That box was a home. It had sturdy cardboard walls, and even a plastic window. We could look out onto the toy store at all of the children. We may not have existed in the world, but at least we could observe it. This box is nothing like that. It’s musty, old, the walls are flimsy and moldy. It’s dark. There’s no plastic window. We don’t exist in the world anymore, and we can’t even observe it.

BENJAMIN: It’s only temporary.

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

BERNADETTE: We don’t matter.

BENJAMIN: You’re just upset because you think we’re missing tea parties.

BERNADETTE: Tea parties are important. They are the most important thing in the entire universe.

BENJAMIN: No, they aren’t.

BERNADETTE: What’s more important than a child’s tea party?

BENJAMIN: Comforting them? Making them feel better when they’re sad or lonely?

BERNADETTE: Okay, fine, but tea parties are the second most important thing in the entire universe.

And we don’t get to go to them anymore, or do any of those other important things.

BENJAMIN: Still, we can’t have Madeleine open up the box to see you with your head ripped off.

Think about what that would do to her. It’s freaky. That’s something that could mess up a child for her whole life.

BERNADETTE: She isn’t going to find out.

BENJAMIN: Yes, she will.

BERNADETTE: No she won’t, because she’s never going to open the box.

BENJAMIN: Yes, she is.

BERNADETTE: We’re in the attic!

BENJAMIN: What?

BERNADETTE: I’ve deduced it.

BENJAMIN: What do you mean you’ve deduced it?

BERNADETTE: If we were under the bed, we would hear the pitter- patter of her feet or the noise of the vacuum cleaner once a week.

BENJAMIN: Maybe they’re moving and we’ve been packed up.

BERNADETTE: Impossible. No car engine. No vibrations. No smell of gas. Just stillness. Stillness and heat and darkness. We’re in an attic, and we’ve been in here for ages.

BENJAMIN: It may have only been one night.

BERNADETTE: Or weeks.

BENJAMIN: Or just a few hours.

BERNADETTE: Months.

BENJAMIN: A few minutes, even.

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

BERNADETTE: Years.

BENJAMIN: For all we know it could have been a few seconds.

BERNADETTE: You’re not thinking clearly.

BENJAMIN: It can’t have been longer than a few months.

BERNADETTE: Why? BENJAMIN: Because we haven’t had her birthday tea party since we’ve been in the box.

BERNADETTE: Well, maybe that’s because we’re not invited.

BENJAMIN: We’re always invited.

BERNADETTE: Maybe she’s outgrown them.

BENJAMIN: She’s eight.

BERNADETTE: She was eight. She could twelve by now, or fifteen, or thirty-nine.

BENJAMIN: Stop.

BERNADETTE: Or forty, or one hundred forty, or— BENJAMIN: —I said stop! You’re scaring me.

BERNADETTE: It is scary. That’s why I want to rip off my head.

BENJAMIN: What is that going to do?

BERNADETTE: Maybe it will end it all.

BENJAMIN: I’ll sew you up.

BERNADETTE: You don’t know how.

BENJAMIN: I’d figure it out.

BERNADETTE: Well, I don’t want you to.

BENJAMIN: Well I don’t want you to…

BERNADETTE: …To? BENJAMIN: Go. (BERNADETTE lets this settle in.)

BERNADETTE: Oh.

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

BENJAMIN: What? Is that so surprising?

BERNADETTE: It’s just… we never really got along that well.

BENJAMIN: We’ve been together since manufacturing.

BERNADETTE: I don’t think that really matters.

BENJAMIN: Of course it matters. We’re a duo. Benjamin and Bernadette. That’s why we’re in this box together.

BERNADETTE: But we’re so different.

BENJAMIN: That’s good. Duos should balance each other out. I’m optimistic; you’re pessimistic. I’m calm; you’re dramatic. I love you and you don’t love me. See? Balance. But we should be thankful. Some toys don’t even get paired.

BERNADETTE: Where do you think the other toys are?

BENJAMIN: Maybe in their own individual boxes. Or maybe in big box all together, smushed on top of each other.

BERNADETTE: If I were in my own box, I could rip off my head and not feel bad about it.

(BENJAMIN gathers himself.)

BENJAMIN: Let’s play a game.

BERNADETTE: No. BENJAMIN: Come on. I’ve thought of a new one.

BERNADETTE: Fine. What is it?

BENJAMIN: You think of a number and I’ll guess it.

BERNADETTE: Okay.

(She closes her eyes.)

BERNADETTE: I’m thinking.

BENJAMIN: 3901.

(BERNADETTE opens her eyes, shocked.)

(BENJAMIN holds back a proud smile.)

BENJAMIN: Okay, you do me now.

(BENJAMIN closes his eyes.)

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

BERNADETTE: Okay, let me think… 46?

(BENJAMIN opens his eyes.)

BENJAMIN: 46? Why 46?

BERNADETTE: Was I right?

BENJAMIN: No. Okay, let’s do you again.

BERNADETTE: Okay.

(BERNADETTE closes her eyes.)

BERNADETTE: I’m thinking of a num— BENJAMIN: -- 65.

(BERNADETTE opens her eyes.)

BERNADETTE: How— BENJAMIN: —I can just sense it.

BERNADETTE: But how?

BENJAMIN: I don’t know.

BERNADETTE: Let me try and guess yours again.

BENJAMIN: Okay, go.

(BENJAMIN closes his eyes.)

BERNADETTE: 558.

(BENJAMIN opens his eyes.)

BENJAMIN: No. (BERNADETTE’s face drops.)

BENJAMIN: Why don’t we just try it between one and ten?

BERNADETTE: I don’t know. I’m bad at this game.

BENJAMIN: Come on; you’ll get it this time.

(BENJAMIN closes his eyes.)

BENJAMIN: I’m thinking of a number between one and ten.

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

BERNADETTE: 7?

(BENJAMIN opens his eyes.)

(He lies.)

BENJAMIN: That’s right! That’s the number!

BERNADETTE: It is?

BENJAMIN: I knew you’d get it. Wasn’t that fun?

BERNADETTE: It was all right. I prefer cards.

BENJAMIN: We don’t have cards.

BERNADETTE: I know. I’m just saying I prefer them.

BENJAMIN: You always prefer things that aren’t here.

BERNADETTE: That’s because there is nothing here.

(BENJAMIN turns away from her.)

BERNADETTE: What?

BENJAMIN: Nothing.

(BENJAMIN walks to a corner of the box.)

BERNADETTE: Are you going to sulk now? You’re so sensitive.

BENJAMIN: I’m tired.

BERNADETTE: You just woke up.

BENJAMIN: I’m worn out.

BERNADETTE: If you go to sleep, I’m going to rip off my head.

BENJAMIN: That’s your problem.

BERNADETTE: I swear I’ll do it!

BENJAMIN: It’s none of my business.

BERNADETTE: You’ll have to see Madeleine’s face all upset when she finds me.

BENJAMIN: You don’t even think she’s coming!

BERNADETTE: As soon as you close your eyes, I’m going to do it.

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

(BENJAMIN stares at her for a moment, then shuts his eyes.)

BERNADETTE: Fine!

(BERNADETTE stomps over to her side of the box. She pretends like she’s trying to rip off her head, making all of the appropriate, over-the-top noises. Eventually, the sound becomes unbearable and BENJAMIN opens his eyes.)

BENJAMIN: All right, stop!

(BERNADETTE smiles, satisfied.)

BERNADETTE: I honestly don’t understand why you’re so tired all of the time. It’s not like we do anything anymore. It’s not like on weekends or holidays where we’d have at least one tea party a day.

BENJAMIN: It’s tiring seeing the world like I do.

(BERNADETTE rolls her eyes.)

BENJAMIN: What?

BERNADETTE: It’s just… Everything you think is so easy.

BENJAMIN: Easy?

BERNADETTE: It’s just so easy. You think everything will be fine in the end, because we’re dolls and bad things don’t happen to dolls. That doesn’t sound very tiring to me.

BENJAMIN: It’s tiring to hear you scream and cry and throw your body against the wall. It’s tiring to listen to the sound of your seams stretch and your threads snap as you attempt to rip off your head. It’s tiring to try and drown out all of the mean things you say to me.

And I know bad things happen to dolls. They happen all of the time. We lose our buttons. We get dirty.

Kids grow up. They replace us. We become reminders of the childhoods they wish they could forget. If we’re lucky, we turn into heirlooms and get to stay with our family forever, but that doesn’t happen to most of us.

There’s an end to every doll’s existence and it’s not pretty. We rot or get tossed in the trash. And the worst thing about it is, we could live forever, if they wanted us to. They could take care of us, mend us, replace our broken buttons, fill us with new fluffy stuffing, wash us gently in the sink, but they don’t.

Because at a certain point, we don’t mean anything to them anymore. But I don’t think that this is that point, Bernadette.

You’re right, though, I do think everything will be fine in the end, but it’s not because I’m naïve and blind to the realities of our situation.

I think everything will be fine in the end because we’re us. I’ve listened to every noise you’ve ever made.

I’ve listened to the sound of your hair bounce up and down on your shoulders when we would play hopscotch with Madeleine.

(BERNADETTE feels her loose, tangled hair.)

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

BERNADETTE: Back when I still had curls.

BENJAMIN: And the way your buttons clacked against each other.

BERNADETTE: A mistake in manufacturing, but Madeleine’s mother sewed them on tighter, and they’ve fit well ever since.

BENJAMIN: And how you would spend your days making lists about what you loved about Madeleine. #1: Her smell.

BERNADETTE: That’s when she was a baby. That’s when we lived in the crib.

BENJAMIN: #2: Her whimper. #3: The way she would grab your hair.

BERNADETTE: Even though it hurt.

BENJAMIN: #4521: How she would grab our hands and swing us around.

BERNADETTE: Flying lessons.

BENJAMIN: Right. And #5923: She’s the best tea party host in the entire universe.

BERNADETTE: She always knew how to make everyone feel included. She had a way of making every toy feel special. One time, after the tea party had ended and she was putting away all of the toys, she picked me up, held me close to her chest and said, “Bernadette, you are my absolute favorite doll.” Then she twirled me around the room, and I soared through the sky. It was the best moment of my entire life. (pause) What?

BENJAMIN: It’s nothing.

BERNADETTE: No, tell me.

BENJAMIN: She told me I was her favorite once, too.

BERNADETTE: Eight year olds are so fickle.

BENJAMIN: I thought she was twelve now… or was it fifteen? Or thirty-nine?

BERNADETTE: Fine, humans are fickle.

BENJAMIN: They aren’t like dolls.

BERNADETTE: Well, not like you, at least.

BENJAMIN: Do you remember any noise I’ve ever made?

BERNADETTE: Sure.

BENJAMIN: Like what?

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SCRIPTS | EUGENIE CARABASTOS

BERNADETTE: You said you loved me.

BENJAMIN: That doesn’t count.

BERNADETTE: Well, I remember it.

BENJAMIN: Why? BERNADETTE: It made an impression on me.

BENJAMIN: Oh. BERNADETTE: What?

BENJAMIN: That’s good.

BERNADETTE: Not necessarily. There are bad impressions.

BENJAMIN: But that wasn’t a bad impression.

BERNADETTE: How do you know?

BENJAMIN: I can tell when you’re lying.

BERNADETTE: No, you can’t.

BENJAMIN: Yes I can. I can tell when you’re lying and when you’re embarrassed and when you’re sad and when you’re restless and I can tell what number you’re thinking of—93.

BERNADETTE: How? BENJAMIN: Because we’re a pair. That’s how I know I made a good impression. That’s how I know there’s a part of you that that believes Madeleine will find us someday. That’s how I know there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to rip off your head… and that’s why I won’t let you.

(BERNADETTE takes a moment.)

BERNADETTE: Pick a number between one and a million.

BENJAMIN: Are you sure? Because last time, I know I said that you got it right but really— BERNADETTE: —Just do it. Pick a number between one and a million.

(BENJAMIN closes his eyes.)

BERNADETTE: Ready BENJAMIN: Yes. BERNADETTE: Two.

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(BENJAMIN smiles. He opens his eyes.)

BENJAMIN: The most important number in the entire universe.

(BENJAMIN and BERNADETTE hold each other’s gaze.)

BERNADETTE: One time when I was crying and thinking about ripping off my head, you came over and sat down next to me.

BENJAMIN: What did I say?

BERNADETTE: You didn’t say anything.

BENJAMIN: Well, what did it sound like, then?

(BERNADETTE thinks for a moment.)

BERNADETTE: Peace.

(BENJAMIN sits silently.)

BERNADETTE: What are you doing?

BENJAMIN: You said you liked when I didn’t say anything.

BERNADETTE: Only when I want to rip off my head.

BENJAMIN: You don’t want to rip off your head anymore?

BERNADETTE: Not right at this moment.

BENJAMIN: But in future moments?

(BERNADETTE looks away.)

BERNADETTE: I don’t know. Maybe.

(BENJAMIN looks at her.)

BENJAMIN: Well, I’m going to enjoy this moment then.

(BERNADETTE looks at him and smiles.)

BERNADETTE: Me too.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Eugenie Carabastos, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 11

END OF PLAY.

CANYON VOICES

Issue 11

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | DANIEL RUBIN

The Absurd Job

By Daniel Rubin

Characters: Duck: A man in a DUCK mask who sits in the passenger’s seat. Speaks with a refined voice.

Rabbit: A man in a RABBIT mask who sits in the driver’s seat, driving the van. with a slight New York accent.

Speaks

Wolf: A man in a WOLF mask who sits in the back of the van. Speaks in a somewhat monotone and sarcastic tone of voice. (most of the time) Scene: A busy city street. Midday. Three men in business attire and various animal masks are in a van together. The tone is casual.

DUCK: I’m not so much as a pessimist as I am an absurdist.

RABBIT: What’s the difference?

DUCK: Well as I understand it, a pessimist believes life is pointless. God is dead. We live only to die. Now an absurdist isn’t like that. He doesn’t know if we have purpose and believes that any attempt to discover that purpose, if it should exist, is-

RABBIT: Absurd.

DUCK: Bingo. Make a right here.

RABBIT: (Makes the right) WOLF: (Who is in the back of the van looks over towards RABBIT) What was that?

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RABBIT: What was what?

WOLF: You didn’t use your turn signal.

RABBIT: How would you know? You are supposed to be looking out for the cops.

WOLF: I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t notice it when you don’t use your turn signal.

RABBIT: (Breathes knowing he’s been caught) So what? No one uses their turn signal anymore.

WOLF: No no no.

RABBIT: (Talking over him) Yes yes yes. How many people do you really see using their turn signals? How many?

WOLF: Just because they don’t doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. It’s a common courtesy thing.

DUCK: Make a left here. It’s gonna be a mad house on Roosevelt this time of day.

(RABBIT makes the left) WOLF: Unfreaking real.

(RABBIT snickers with a satisfied grin) The three men go silent for a while as if trying to think of something to talk about. WOLF: is occupying himself by carefully stacking the money in the back of the van into neat little piles.

DUCK: Kirk or Piccard?

RABBIT and WOLF at the same time: Piccard.

DUCK: Good. I mean I don’t like conflict, but I was gonna argue that one all the way to the bank if you had said Kirk. (Laughs) RABBIT: You? You hate conflict?

DUCK: Is that really so surprising?

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WOLF: Hey isn’t that Rocko coming up here on our right?

DUCK: Yeah it is. Hey slow down for a second. (He lowers his window) AY YO ROCKO! (Drawing a pistol he fires a few shots out of the van as it drives by. Screams can be heard coming from various street patrons.)

(WOLF AND RABBIT make shouts of protest at DUCK:) WOLF: Oh sure. Attract more attention to ourselves.

RABBIT: No shit! What the fuck did you do that for?! He sleep with your mom?! God damn it!

DUCK: (Calmly) What? Oh no no. It’s just this whole (He sniffs) this whole thing… (Pause) How much did we get anyways?

RABBIT: Don’t try and change the subject here!

DUCK: I’m not… but how much did we get?

WOLF: (Sighing, he looks down at the money in the back of the van that has been stacked carefully) Ahhh… looking like somewhere around five mill.

RABBIT: Not a bad haul.

WOLF: Could have been better.

RABBIT: Don’t be a pessimist.

WOLF: I’m not a pessimist. I’m an absurdist. (He says in a mocking tone of voice.)

(Duck shakes his head) RABBIT: How are we going to split it anyways?

DUCK: Nope.

RABBIT: But I-

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DUCK: Nope.

RABBIT: Listen I am just curiDUCK: Nope.

RABBIT: (Huffs frustrated) I just want to make sure I don’t get screwed on my take like I did last time.

DUCK: Your concerns are noted but, you ask this question every single time and I keep telling you the same thing. There are three things you don’t talk about with people you want to stay on good terms with, politics, religion and how you split the money.

RABBIT: Yeah but we can avoid talking about the first two. Eventually we are going to have to talk about the third.

RABBIT drives over a slight bump in the road causing one of WOLF’s stacks of money to topple.

WOLF: (In almost a whisper to himself) Fuck. (Begins to restack the money) DUCK: (Responding to RABBIT) Yes we do. But that has its proper time and place and this is neither the time nor the place.

RABBIT: You don’t have to talk down to me like that. You know you’re always doing that.

DUCK: Talking down to you?

RABBIT: Yeah what with your “Ohhh I’m so smart look at me, I know about philosophy” attitude.

DUCK: Just trying to make conversation.

RABBIT: No you are trying to prove to everyone how smart you think you are. You do this every freaking day and quite frankly man, quite frankly, I’m sick of it. And do you know what else I am sick of? (He points to his mask) Why the FUCK do I always have to be the bunny? I am

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sick of being the bunny! I want to be the WOLF: for once! Why do I always have to be the bunny?!

WOLF: It’s a rabbit.

RABBIT: Why do I always have to be the fucking RABBIT?!

DUCK: Because Mr. Happy back there is the Wolf. (He thumbs to WOLF) We can’t have two wolves.

RABBIT: Why can’t we have two wolves? (Speaking louder) DUCK: Why can’t we have two wolves?! (Seemingly speechless before turning around and speaking to WOLF) Can you believe this asshole?

WOLF: (Quietly to himself) You’re both kind of assholes…

RABBIT: Asshole?!

DUCK: What else do you call something that spews out shit all day?

RABBIT: Know what?! (Slams on the breaks causing WOLF’s entire money stack to fall over making him visibly upset) DUCK: Oh what you are going to do this now? You are going to throw one of your little temper tantrums now?

(RABBIT stubbornly crosses his arms and does not respond) WOLF: Guys…

DUCK: No no, do you know what? It’s fine. Let baby throw his fit. I got time.

Sirens can be heard in the distance WOLF: C’mon guys just-

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RABBIT: I don’t mind going back to the slammer.

DUCK: You’re full of it.

WOLF: They are getting closer.

The sirens get louder.

RABBIT: Not as full of it as your ass is gonna be once they take you to Riker’s.

DUCK: They are going to take you in you too bunny!

RABBIT: I’M A RABBIT MOTHER FUCKER! WOLF: (Losing his temper, draws his gun and aiming it at the windshield in between the two arguing men, the gun goes off right next to their ears.)

DUCK: GAH! RABBIT: FUCK! WOLF: START THE FUCKING VAN!

(RABBIT angrily floors the gas as the van burns out and takes off) WOLF: Thank fucking Christ it’s a fucking miracle! I AM SO GOD DAMN SICK OF PLAYING THE STRAIGHT MAN! (Kicks the back of each of their seats with a foot)

The group falls into an awkward silence. RABBIT: drives as DUCK: painfully rubs the ear that was exposed to the loud gunshot. WOLF:, breathing heavily and attempting to calm down, keeps an eye out for any cops that were still tailing them and now has his back to the other two, seeming to have given up on the money stacks, looking out the back windows.

RABBIT: I mean I get it. You are smart. Good for you. Why are you doing this then?

DUCK: I will have you know that I had a very good reason for shooting Rocko.

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RABBIT: No no the-

DUCK: Oh the whole bank robbing thing.

RABBIT: Yeah. I mean why r—oh look at this. How the hell am I supposed to drive with a windshield that has been practically shattered thanks to your stupid bullet?

(WOLF without looking back at the other two, raises his middle finger for them to see as RABBIT continued to speak) RABBIT: Why risk your life doing shit like this if you are so clever?

DUCK: (After a long moment of thinking about it, answered) Albert Camus, an author that was big on the whole absurdism thing, said that the most rational and logical response to being faced with the idea that one does not have a purpose is suicide.

RABBIT: Sounds like a right jolly fellow. So that’s what this is then? Just a long and drawn out suicide? On every job do you secretly hope that some cop sweeps up behind you and plugs you right in the back of the head?

DUCK: You didn’t let me finish. While he says that suicide might be the answer that makes the most sense, it’s also cowardly. Instead he offers a sort of… acceptance.

RABBIT: You’ve lost me.

DUCK: Of course I have.

WOLF: You wanna start again?

DUCK: Not having a purpose is the only way someone can truly be free. All I am doing is enjoying that freedom.

RABBIT: That’s bullshit. (Pauses, seeming to consider it) Accepting it huh?

DUCK: I told you I wasn’t a pessimist. Take a left here.

(RABBIT makes the left)

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WOLF: SONNOVABITCH! RABBIT: Heheh. I’m enjoying my freedom too.

End it

◼ ◼ ◼

For the original publication and information on author Daniel Rubin, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 13

CANYON VOICES

Issue 13

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | MAX CANO

The Green Mirror

By Max Cano

Characters: August: A patient female in her twenties who can see the bright side of anything. Lately, AUGUST’s dark side has been too much for her to handle.

Skyler: A twenty-something male who finds no positivity in his life and is mostly exhausted with it all. He is ready to give up trying to live normally.

Gender and physical appearance do not matter for either character.

Scene: SKYLER is at a bus stop, almost in a trance-like state. There is very little light or foot traffic. AUGUST is yelling at him from the car.

AUGUST: Skyler… Skyler… Skyler! Get in the car.

SKYLER snaps out of it, looking confused. SKYLER gets in AUGUST’S car with no dialogue.

They drive in silence until they arrive at their home. They enter.

AUGUST: Do you want some coffee?

SKYLER: Yeah.

AUGUST: How do you want it?

SKYLER: Black, please.

SKYLER takes a seat in the living room and AUGUST begins making coffee. Time seems to suddenly jump as AUGUST hands him a cup of coffee. AUGUST sits down across from SKYLER as he takes the cup.)

SKYLER: Thanks.

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SKYLER begins smelling the coffee as AUGUST breaks the silence.

AUGUST: Sky? How are you doing?

SKYLER: I’m good. Fine.

AUGUST stares at SKYLER. SKYLER: What?

AUGUST: What? What were you doing out there so late?

SKYLER: Can we at least wait until we’re done with the coffee to have grown up talk?

AUGUST: No. SKYLER: Well, you know as much as I do.

AUGUST: Yeah? So you have no idea what you were doing or where you were going?

SKYLER: August, I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to talk about it. Right now, when I’m here, can we just sit here and enjoy our coffee? Please?

AUGUST: No. I drove an hour and a half to find you and that’s my favorite coffee you’re drinking, so I think I deserve a little conversation.

SKYLER: I know you do, but these conversations always end up with you acting like my therapist.

AUGUST: Skyler, this is the only way I know how to deal with your—our situation.

SKYLER: Okay, but right now just talk to me. Let’s talk about the weather, anything else. I don’t know how many times we’ve done this. I’ve told you that when one of “them” comes, it’s like a blank space, so this conversation will go nowhere fast. Just let me handle it, I’m fine.

AUGUST: No, you’re not fine.

SKYLER: Yes! I… AUGUST: I don’t believe it.

SKYLER: So what, you don’t believe it?!

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AUGUST: Well, don’t tell me you're fine when you’re clearly– SKYLER: Okay, I’m not fine! Is that what you want to hear? I’m not fine with waking up in random places, I’m not fine not knowing if I might hurt someone or myself, I’m not fine with the continuous fear I may never come back. I’m not fine.

Flashback to a confrontation between SKYLER and AUGUST while DOMINIC, SKYLER’S second personality, is present. AUGUST is knocking on a closed door and tries talking to DOMINIC. AUGUST: Sk–Dominic, please open the door.

DOMINIC does not answer.

AUGUST: Are you hungry? I’ll get whatever you want.

DOMINIC does not answer.

AUGUST: Okay, if you need anything I’ll be out here.

AUGUST lays her head on the door and the flashback ends.

SKYLER: I mean, how can I be fine knowing what I make you go through everyday?

AUGUST: It’s not so bad.

SKYLER: Will you stop that? Stop being so calm. August, I continuously push you away and tell you awful things that “I” would never normally think of saying to you.

AUGUST: I know.

SKYLER: Most people would count that as pretty bad.

AUGUST: Well, we aren’t most people.

SKYLER: Yes, we are.

Flashback to SKYLER’S final personality, OSCAR, walking out the front door aggressively.

AUGUST is chasing him.

AUGUST: Skyler? Skyler!

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OSCAR: Leave me alone!

AUGUST: Skyler!

OSCAR: Get your hands off me!

AUGUST: Skyler, where are you going?!

OSCAR: I’m not Skyler! Look at you, you’re a sinner, you know that? I’m not going to stay in this house with a filthy whore like you. Smoking and drinking every day. You’re going to hell you know that?

Flashback ends.

SKYLER: I mean, why are you still trying? Just send me somewhere so I don’t hurt you. So I can be someone else’s problem.

AUGUST: Is that what you think you are? A problem?

SKYLER scoffs. Beat.

AUGUST: Would you believe me that it’s worth it?

SKYLER: Yeah? What exactly is it worth? Is it worth being publicly humiliated? Is it worth driving around until 2 o’clock in the morning? Or how about not being able to have a simple meal? Look at me. That can’t be worth it.

Lengthy beat.

AUGUST: You’re worth it. Skyler? You are worth it. Every little bit of time I have with you is worth it.

SKYLER: Oh, God. AUGUST: Listen. Let’s say you have a favorite song–I mean, one that really connects to you, one that is just perfect–you listen to it in the morning and every time you go to bed because you can right?

SKYLER nods in agreement.

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AUGUST: What if you weren't allowed to listen to it for ten years? You’d start forgetting what it sounded like, what the lyrics were, you might of even forget it was your favorite song; but once you finally hear it, it takes you back to what you felt. It would be the best thing you ever heard in that moment–the best thing you would ever hear–until it leaves again.

Silence.

SKYLER: Damn it, August. Damn it, that was good.

AUGUST: That was good wasn’t it?

SKYLER and AUGUST grin and laugh before it goes silent again.

AUGUST: Hey. You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.

SKYLER: Yeah… I’m gonna get another cup. You want one?

AUGUST: Sure.

SKYLER takes AUGUST’S cup and leaves the room. AUGUST sits back with a tired look and slowly begins to hear SKYLER yelling and throwing things around in the other room. The cycle continues.

Fade Out

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Max Cano, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 14

CANYON VOICES

Issue 14

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | MAX CANO

CANYON VOICES

Issue 14

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | JONATHAN LEE

Chicharrones

By Jonathan Lee

Fade In:

INT. BOXING RING - NIGHT The lights reflect on the tough looking bodies facing head to head.

MAMBO BROWN, 22, wearing a couple of bruises on his face and JAMES LEE, a young Asian-American teen, dancing left and right, avoiding some punches but inevitably getting hit here and there.

The match is late in the last round with the seconds winding down. Mambo has the upper hand, but James is giving it his all - One desperate punch at a time.

James breathes hard, sweat dripping from his face. He jabs at Mambo who blocks. Then he reaches for the long hook to Mambo’s head, but he swiftly evades and counters- sending James down for the count.

The thunderous sound of the crowd slowly drowns out as the ANNOUNCER starts his count.

ANNOUNCER:…7 ...8 ...9 James lays stunned. His eyes showing some dim signs of life but it looks like it’s all over for him.

EXT. CHICHARRONES STAND - NIGHT (EARLIER)

The stand lies desolate except for James who stands surrounded by the mess of chicharrones and other chips. Street lamps illuminate the surroundings.

James slumps down, tired from the days work, resting his head on his hands. He opens a bag of chicharrones and lazily puts them one by one into his mouth. He scans the packet for entertainment as he eats.

An advertisement reading "Champion in the making? Join Alberto’s Gym now!" catches his attention. He stops crunching on his chicharrones and dusts off his hands. He reaches down under the counter for a pair of scissors and cuts the ad out, examining it. Then, he turns and

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pins it to a wall full of boxers and fighters. Newspaper clippings of their victories and glories. He stares at the board, caressing each clip slowly.

STRANGER 1: Ya Chinga! You there?

A voice interrupts James ’moment. He whips around to face the sound- a pair of guys approaching the stand. STRANGER 1, 25, and STRANGER 2, 23.

STRANGER 1 (TO STRANGER 2): Hey watcha want? I got you.

JAMES: Hey sorry guys but the stands closed, I gotta go home for the night.

STRANGER 1: What you on about chink? You still here, no?

James ’hand clenches STRANGER 1 (TO STRANGER 2): Aight you want some chicharrones?

JAMES: Look, I said its closed. I’m sorry.

He reaches down to pull the gate on the stand down but Stranger 1 stops it before it can shut.

STRANGER 1: Bruh why you actin like a lil bitch? Just give me my damn chicharrones!

STRANGER 2: Hey calm down man. It ain worth it, its just some chips man.

STRANGER 1: Nah, this chink disrespectin me. Come here bitch ass.

Stranger 1 grabs James by the collar and brings him face to faceSTRANGER 1: Why you disrespectin me, huh? Wonton eatin ass, just give me my fuckin-

James sucker punches him across the cheek. Stranger 1 lets go, for a moment he’s stunned. Then he spurs up- anger amplified. He grabs James by the shoulder and throws him out of the stand.

STRANGER 1 (TO STRANGER 2): Yo hold him down!

Stranger 2 pins him onto the curb while Stranger 1 runs up, launching a kick to his stomach. He kicks him a few more times until there’s almost no response from James anymore.

Stranger 2 loosens his grip.

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STRANGER 2: Let’s get the fuck out of here.

STRANGER 1: Aight, hold up.

Stranger 1 reaches in the stand and grabs a bag of chicharrones and runs off. James lays motionless for a while...Then he curls up into a ball, clutching his head.

INT. SHOWER - DAY James turns the faucet of the shower, the water running down his face. For a long time he rests under the water. All of the sudden, he lashes out in the air — almost flailing at nothing. The rhythm of his movements gets increasingly faster and more contorted, like a hypnotic dance. His hands wrapped around his head. Then a piercing scream rings out and as soon as the little episode had started- it stops. He slumps down, sitting, water pelting his scalp.

He sits drained.

EXT. OUTSIDE OF GYM - DAY James arrives at Alberto’s Gym, the advertisement in hand.

INT. GYM - DAY Scattered throughout the gym are trophies of past glories and victories and the young hopefuls that are punching the bags and jumping rope. In the center of it all is a boxing ring with an old hardened coach drilling a lean fighter. This is ALBERTO. James approaches the rink with the Alberto’s flyer in hand.

JAMES: Excuse me...

But Alberto’s too busy training.

James stands awkwardly for a quick second then starts to leave. He’s at the door, noticing the sweaty hardworking men giving in the punching bag their all. He hesitates for a moment and then turns to leave, chiming the bell on the door whenALBERTO: Hey You! James whips around.

JAMES: …huh?

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ALBERTO: You lookin’ to fight?

JAMES: Yeah. Saw this.

He flashes the little flyer.

ALBERTO: Well what are ya waiting for then? Come ’ere.

INT. BOXING RING - DAY Alberto throws over a pair of used red gloves over to James.

JAMES: Well I’m really more looking to learn how to figh-

ALBERTO: Let’s see what you got lil’ man.

He turns over to the guy he was training- Mambo Brown.

ALBERTO (TO MAMBO): Alright, this is just warm-up for your big match tonight. Keep it nice and neat.

JAMES: Hey- I really don’t know how to fightALBERTO: Well they always say a true fighter comes out when your backed into a corner. You ready to go?

DING DING The bell rings, starting the fight.

Mambo struts confidently to the center of the ring, hands up, guarding his face. The intensity in his face doesn’t let up for a second.

James inches forward, timidly. He raises his gloves matching Mambo’s. A crowd starts forming around the ring. Mambo jabs lightly, testing the waters. James diligently blocks, hiding behind his gloves. The air is tense as the two fighters circle on another. Both fighters holding back from confrontation. Then the spell is brokenJames swings a wild hook at Mambo. Mambo dodges to the left and responds with a body shot.

He recoils back, wind taken out off his lungs, but Mambo doesn’t stop yet. He winds for an uppercut and plummets James firmly onto the ground.

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The crowd winces in slight pity.

ALBERTO: Alright alright, that’s enough.

James winces in pain on the ground.

ALBERTO: Hey someone go help him out.

STEPHEN GREEN, 26, enters the ring and kneels by James’ side.

STEPHEN: You good man?

JAMES: (in pain) Yeah... I’ll be okay.

Alberto approaches James.

ALBERTO: Hey sorry kid, but I don’t think this fighting business is for you.

He turns to leave but-

JAMES: Hey wait! At least let me train here. I didn’t just get beat up for nothin.

Alberto looks at James for a minute... then laughs.

ALBERTO: Haha yeah sure you can use those punching bags all you want but I’m sorry kiddo I don’t got time to train you.

James slumps down, taking a deep breath.

INT. GYM - NIGHT Punch.. Punch.. Punch..

A steady rhythm of weak punches almost drone into the background. James sweating a ton, grunts in exertion after each punch.

STEPHEN: Hey c’mon, I gotta lock up the gym. I think you’ve done more than enough for today.

Punch.. Punch..

The rhythm stops. James looks up and nods, his breathing a bit heavy.

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EXT. OUTSIDE OF GYM - NIGHT Stephan locks the doors of the gym.

STEPHEN: Hey sorry about my old man. He’s a little crazy sometimes JAMES: Alberto’s your dad? Woulda never guessed.

STEPHEN: Yeah, get that a lot- but see me boxing and man you’ll know where all the genes went to.

He places a lockpad over the doors and gives it a click.

STEPHEN (CONT’D): Hey you wanna go grab a bite?

INT. HOT DOG SHOP - NIGHT It’s a little hole in the wall hot dog joint. A popular late night snack.

STEPHEN: Maan! You got your ass handed to you by Mambo.

JAMES: Hey I don’t even know how to fight! Besides, I doubt you woulda done any better.

STEPHEN (Jokingly): Pshh fuck off man. I woulda knocked him out so fast he wouldn’t even see it coming bruh.

JAMES: Yeah yeah man. Whatever you say.

They laugh whole-heartedly. James takes a sip from his drink.

STEPHEN: I think you got promise man.

JAMES: Promise? In boxing? You really think so?

STEPHEN: Yeah, you got promise... but not in boxing man. As a person.

JAMES: Oh c’mon man. Get out of here with hat bull STEPHEN: No no. I mean it. You got so much potential. Why you trynna fight? Why you trynna be something you ain’?

JAMES: …

CANYON VOICES

Issue 16

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | JONATHAN LEE

James sits for a while. The pair is quiet with only the faint radio of the restaurant filling in the space. He reaches for another swig of his drink EXT. CHICHARRONES STAND - DAY It’s a sunny day out. Kids and their parents walk down the street with laziness. There’s a couple walking together, a man on a bicycle, and a uptight business woman taking a phone call.

In the midst of all the movement, James stands stagnant in his chicharrones stand. Selling deep fried pork skins to the occasional customer.

SERIES OF SHOTS EXT. STREET - DAY James goes to work training on the road. The thuds of his feet increasing in tempo faster and faster...untilINT. GYM - DAY

...they transition into high tempo jump roping. James adorns a slight scowl as he jumps getting faster.

EXT. CHICHARRONES STAND - NIGHT James grabs a box of chicharrones and starts restocking. Once he’s finished, he starts shadow boxing against the boxing clippings, striking into the air with intensity...

SMASH CUT TO: INT. GYM - DAY ...we transition back to the gym where he’s wrapped up and shadow boxing in front of a mirror.

EXT. OUTSIDE OF GYM - NIGHT Stephen and James, the last ones out of the gym, lock up again.

EXT. OUTSIDE OF GYM - DAY James walks into the gym bright and early with no one else in the parking lot.

CANYON VOICES

Issue 16

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | JONATHAN LEE

INT. BOXING RING - DAY Stephen spars with James one-on-one.

STEPHEN: Left.. Right.. Cross..

James gets faster and faster, punching his hands, getting better matching Stephen’s rhythm.

STEPHEN: Yes! You got it!

James strikes with one last thud into the mitt.

STEPHEN: Man you are really getting good…Might start giving me a run for my money.

They take their gloves off.

JAMES: You really think so? I still feel like I can get my ass whooped in five seconds.

STEPHEN (Jokingly): Hey that’s part of the process. But don’t worry man, you’re ready.

James rests against the ropes off the ring.

STEPHEN (CONT’D): Just go talk to Alberto and see if you can get a fight.

INT. GYM OFFICE - DAY

The office is adorned with trophies and news paper clippings- most of them from a long time ago.

JAMES: What do you mean you can’t get me a fight? I’m ready!

ALBERTO: You ain’t ready kid.. Just cause you can punch a bag don’t mean you can fight— You ain got the guts kid. Just go home — you got a bright future but this world ain for you.

James looks stunned. He shakes his head in disbelief and turns to walk out.

EXT. CHICHARRONES STAND - NIGHT

Once again James sits behind the counter all alone. He turns round eyeing the wall of boxing clippings that he has saved over the years.

CANYON VOICES

Issue 16

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | JONATHAN LEE

He places his hands over them gently at first — then with a blood curling scream he rips the clipping, tearing the board. He starts violently punching at the board.

The board is now cracked with torn papers hanging limply and a mess of them on the floor.

James pants heavily and sits stone cold.

INT. GYM - NIGHT

James is alone at the gym punching a bag. He’s the last one there — not even Stephen is present.

His halfhearted punches thud into the eerie silence.

As he trains a creak in the door as heard and Stephen comes in in a wheelchair.

STEPHEN (Jokingly): Hey It’s closing time pal, ya gotta go.

JAMES: Stephen! What happened to you?

STEPHEN: Psh.. It’s nothing you gotta worry ’bout. C’mon you get to it — you got a lot more training to do. Here I’ll help you hold the bag down.

He wheels over to the bag.

JAMES: Train for what? There ain’t a point anymore..

STEPHEN: What’re you talking about? You’re fighting for me! I can’t make my next match so you’re taking my place.

James is stunned for a moment..

JAMES: No, I can’t man — it’s your fight... I didn’t even earn it.

STEPHEN: Shut up man, just take the fight. You’re ready and besides — d’you think I can fight? This is your chance man, don’t let it slip away..

James looks at Stephen with gratitude.

JAMES: I’m gonna win that match — just you watch.

STEPHEN: You better! -Hey c’mon stop slacking off, let’s get to it.

Stephen holds the bag while James pounds the bag with renewed vigor and a smile on his face.

CANYON VOICES

Issue 16

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | JONATHAN LEE

INT. LOCKER ROOM - NIGHT It’s fight time. James sports white boxing shorts and stares at himself in the mirror... He examines his face, looking meditatively at his reflection. He picks up a pair of clippers and raises it to his head. The low rumble makes a crunching noise as it mows down his hair. When he’s finished, he runs a hand through his now buzzed scalp... He’s ready now.

INT. BOXING RING - NIGHT The two fighters, Mambo and James, walk on opposite sides to the ring. The sounds of the crowd and the ANNOUNCER are drowned out by James ’anxiety — almost dream like. Stephen nods to James as he passes, making eye contact. The two fighters walk to the center as they bump fists and return to their corners.

A dull bell rings —Commencing the fight. Both fighters charge out of their corners like bulls.

James making the first strike with a hook to the head- stunning Mambo who shrugs it off.

Mambo fires off quick jabs. James catches a few to the face — Mambo follows up with a bodyshot, pushing James to the net. Sensing being drawn to the edge, James maneuvers and dodges Mambo’s follow up hook and counters with a strike square on the jaw. He takes advantage of the situation by rapid hits to the stomach.

It looks as though James is gaining momentum but Mambo quickly retaliates, swinging with a nasty uppercut — James stumbles, trying to regain his footing. He struggles to keep his hands up, blocking his face but Mambo follows up with a wide left hook knocking James down — A ringing noise is heard...

Mambo stands over a defeated James while the announcer starts his count.

ANNOUNCER: ONE, TWO, THREE MAMBO: Looks like training won’t get you anywhere if you’re trash to begin with... You ain’t shit kid, go home.

Mambo turns toward the crowd — arms high in the air, flaunting.

James struggles to pick himself back up, his body wont cooperate.

ANNOUNCER: FIVE, SIX...

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SCRIPTS | JONATHAN LEE

He drags himself to the ropes using them to prop himself back up.

ANNOUNCER: SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE...

The crowd goes wild as Mambo parades around the ring.

JAMES: I’m up! I’m up!

ANNOUNCER: Can you fight?

James nods. The Announcer nods back slightly concerned for James but turns to signal for the fight to continue. Mambo looks surprised by James ’recovery which quickly turns to disdain.

MAMBO: Stay down kid!

James responds with a succession of quick jabs to Mambo’s liver. He’s moving a lot quicker now- the initial anxiety now gone. He dances as he probes with his jabs.

DING DING

The round ends with James bruised and breathing hard but Mambo isn’t without his causalities as well. James limps to the corner as Stephen hands him a water bottle.

STEPHEN: Hey you’re doing good out there but you gotta slow it down. It’s still only the first round-- You gotta play man.

James nods breathlessly. His gaze looks distant as if in a trance.

STEPHEN: Go get ’em For three rounds James stays in pace with Mambo. But he’s hanging on a thread with his eyes swelling up and blood running down his face.

STEPHEN: That’s it! Stick with him.

JAMES (Exhausted): I don’t think I’m gonna make it..He’s too good.

STEPHEN: Hey stop talkin like that — you got this. I know you’re hurtin'— but look at him over there. He’s hurtin too.

Mambo looks battered as he spits blood.

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SCRIPTS | JONATHAN LEE

STEPHEN (CONT’D): You feel the pain?

James nods.

DING DING STEPHEN: Good— that’s good. Feel it. Its real. Not like selling chicharrones every day. Now you go on out there and kick that guys ass.

The Fourth and final round commences.

James is locked in and focused solely on Mambo. He starts first on the offensive, jabbing with his left. He gets an opening and follows it up with a right. Mambo regains his footing but James isn’t done yet. He continues the onslaught, mixing body blows with strikes to the face.

He’s got Mambo on the ropes... but Mambo won’t fall.

Digging deep — he winds up for a devastating uppercut but Mambo manages to evade and counter with a straight left. James backs off, almost at his limit. Mambo charges forward with a right as James, instead of trying to evade, goes in with a right of his own.

They trade blow for blow—both fighters look absolutely drained but they press on, until only one remains standing.

But there isn’t much time left on the clock...

The crowd is split between the two, Mambo’s fans and those who love a good underdog story.

Alongside them, Stephen screams his head off.

Mambo swings wide. James punishes with a shot to the ear. He follows up with a left. Right.

Left. Right. Then a last hook... And down goes Mambo — K.O He flops limp on the ground. The crowd goes wild.

James looks stunned at what just happened. He looks around the room grasping for a pair of familiar eyes. He catches Stephen who gives him a big smile and a nod.

As if finally believing he had won, James lifts his hands into the sky. The bright light of the ring illuminating him like a halo as if he would ascend into heaven at any moment — Victorious.

THE END

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Jonathan Lee, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 16

CANYON VOICES

Issue 16

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

A Human and a God Meet on a Bridge

By Addison Rizer

Characters: Molly: A young, twenty-something year old woman.

Callie: A centuries old God. Bridge: The truth bridge. It is magic. It is honest.

Setting: A bridge on the outskirts of town.

Performance Notes: We are on a rickety bridge, river water high enough to touch the bottom of it. In the distance, on one side of the bridge, there is MOLLY’S town. On the other, a mountain half-hidden by thick clouds.

AT RISE: Scene opens on a twenty-something woman, MOLLY, sitting on a bridge with her legs dangling over the edge, river water lapping up at her ankles. She's got her eyes closed, face tilted towards the clouds covering the sky in dark gray. Behind her sits another person, cross legged on the splintering bridge, a wrinkling woman whose face is bent, hands clasped in her lap.

CALLIE. She's silent while Molly begins to speak.

MOLLY: Dear Gods, let me just say I believe in you. Still. Always. But, can I ask you for a favor?

Could you clear these clouds, just for today? It's been cloudy for the last two months, three almost. We're aren’t flowers, but we whither, all of us. For even just an hour, even just ten minutes.

(Without turning around, CALLIE speaks. MOLLY doesn't move as she does.)

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BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

CALLIE: Dear Molly, let me just say I believe in you. Still. Always. You humans always do amaze me. All those winding roads, all those buildings touching the sky. You care, you know? All of you have something to care about. Molly, I can't help you. I doubt anyone who can is even listening.

MOLLY: (with hope) I knew you'd come.

CALLIE: I like it here. This bridge in between.

MOLLY: Me too. The water always feels better here. My momma had a story about this bridge.

You can't get more than halfway across unless you tell it all your secrets. The water will swell until there’s no way to get across without them. We call it the Truth Bridge. When they were teenagers, my mom and dad came here together, hand in hand. They said they stood in front of where the water swelled and said I do in front of it. Together, they watched the water lower.

Every year on their anniversary, they came back here. Every year, the water lowered. My parents love was a lot of things, but mostly it was honest.

CALLIE: Is that why you’re here? To see what’s honest in you?

MOLLY: No. I figured somewhere like this, where truth is the only thing, the Gods might listen.

They’d know I wasn’t lying here. About my faith. About how little I want. About how I won’t ask anything else of them.

CALLIE: They aren’t listening.

(MOLLY is silent.)

CALLIE CONT’D: I’ve heard my share of secrets sitting here. Everyone tends to pass me by without seeing me. Must be part of the God thing.

MOLLY: That must be nice. Everyone's eyes follow me around. Now, anyway. They didn't used to.

CALLIE: Why’s that?

MOLLY: Don’t you know?

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Issue 17

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

CALLIE: Yes. But, say it anyway. It's a rule here, isn't it? Tell the bridge your secrets, love.

MOLLY: Dear Callie, I want the sun back for my brother. His funeral is today. When we were little, we used to come to this bridge and he'd dive into the river to spend hours floating on his back beneath the sun. I'd sit up here, watching. I used to come home with the back of my neck burnt to a crisp, but the sun never once burnt that boy. The sun loved him, followed him everywhere. Once, I swear, the sun came through our window, bounced off two mirrors and my mother's glasses just to reach him reading in the living room. For him, for my brother who the sun loved and who loved the sun back, let us have the sun. Give it back. Just for today.

CALLIE: They can't, you know. The clouds are there for a reason.

MOLLY: Why? CALLIE: They’re arguing, the Gods. The clouds cover their yelling so you think it’s thunder.

You all, always wanting logic where there isn't any. Always wanting something. Always wanting.

MOLLY: Why aren't you up there, then?

CALLIE: I quit.

MOLLY: You quit being a God?

CALLIE: I stopped believing in our power. I watched too many people pray to us and none of them get heard.

MOLLY: You’re listening.

CALLIE: I don't count anymore.

MOLLY: You do count. You're listening. That’s all that counts.

CALLIE: Hate to break it to you, but I'm the only one.

MOLLY: At least there's someone.

CALLIE: I can't help you.

CANYON VOICES

Issue 17

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

MOLLY: I believe you can.

CALLIE: (fiercely) I can’t.

MOLLY: He killed himself, did you know that? Threw himself into this river after two months of no sunlight. He just wanted the sun. If only for one day. One hour. He would've made it with just one single minute.

CALLIE: I know.

MOLLY: He prayed to you, didn't he? Like I'm doing now? He spent hours asking for the sun back and no one did a thing.

CALLIE: I know. I heard. He came up here, too. Before.

MOLLY: And still, still, I believe in you. In all of you. You who did nothing. You who are letting this town whither for some argument. What's it even about?

CALLIE: Something about losing believers.

MOLLY: Not killing us would be a good start.

CALLIE: They don't see it like that. They don't see you at all.

MOLLY: You do, though.

CALLIE: That’s why I left. Gods can't believe in humans like I do. Just Humans, the whole.

Never the singular. It makes the job too hard.

MOLLY: He left me a note, did you know that, too?

CALLIE: You’ve got it in your pocket.

MOLLY: I carry it with me everywhere. Do you know what's on it?

CALLIE: Tell me.

CANYON VOICES

Issue 17

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

MOLLY: He left me a list of things to do. Chores. Scrub the floors, sand the deck, throw all the windows open to air out the house. It goes on and on, until the end when he writes, Repeat until your chest feels clean. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the sun comes back. That's where I'll be. My brother knew this would ruin me. It was just the two of us. He knew, so he left me a list of hundreds of things to do for him. For me. Now, there will always be something else to do than grieve.

CALLIE: I’m sorry.

MOLLY: I’m hurting.

CALLIE: I would lose everything if I interfered. Die. Make it worth it.

MOLLY: How? CALLIE: Tell me about him. But, know this: everything you share becomes mine. You won't remember any of it.

MOLLY: Must you take everything from me? Even my brother, can’t stay mine.

CALLIE: (Sharply) What else have you to offer?

MOLLY: Nothing. Nothing. I have no money. I have nothing. I’d give you my grief if I could.

CALLIE: What would a God want with that?

MOLLY: Why my memories?

CALLIE: What have Gods ever wanted but your heart? To have what hurts you, and watch you believe despite it. Because of it. We want you to know we have what’ll destroy you, and we want you to love us for it. At least, I used to. Now, though, I just want to know what it’s like to care.

See how you care about him. See if I can care about him too. Die for him who died for us.

MOLLY: How will I know when it's enough?

CALLIE: I’ll tell you. I won't take more than I need. Just, make me believe in him. Make me love him. Make me care enough to sacrifice something of myself.

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BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

MOLLY: You’re halfway to caring, or you wouldn't let me try.

(CALLIE shrugs and falls silent.)

MOLLY: Okay. Alright. Before we start, all I ask is for one hour of sun. The funeral will be here, on the river bank, at noon. I believe, and I'll keep believing. But, please, just this once, listen.

Listen CALLIE: I’m listening.

MOLLY: When we were little, he used to sneak into my room during thunderstorms. These clouds remind me of that a little bit. Thing is, he'd come not because he was scared, but because he knew I was. I always was too scared to even move when it got loud. Felt like everything would shatter, you know? So, he'd come. Every time. Without fail.

Once, he was at a basketball tournament in the next town over when a storm came thundering in. He was a senior in high school and far too cool to come running home to his freshman sister in the middle of the night. But, he did. He did. He stayed the whole night with me even though he should’ve been messing around with his teammates at the hotel, or resting before their game the next morning. But, he came. And he stayed.

He would whisper about everything, but mostly how he knew the sun would come back. He always did believe in the sun like that. Like I believe in you guys. It'll be back, he'd say, or the sun doesn't love me and what could be less true than that? And, I knew he was right. I knew. The storm would pass and the sun would come back every single time. As a kid, I believed for a long time the sun came back just for him and him alone. Part of me thinks maybe it won't ever come back now, without him.

(CALLIE moves to sit beside MOLLY.) MOLLY: Once, he took me to a haunted house. One of those silly ones put together by Big Dave down the road. It was cheesy, all dark hallways and reaching hands. But, I was terrified.

Absolutely terrified. Couldn't move an inch when a clown chased me down the hallway and into a corner. But, Henry just kept laughing at everything. Pointing out all the little details. How the werewolf's tail was hanging on by a thread. How the curtain hiding the vampire was polka dotted and pink. He laughed and laughed until I was laughing too. Henry always could find the funny bits.

CANYON VOICES

Issue 17

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

I wonder what he'd say about this. A human and a God meet on a bridge. He’d find a joke in there somewhere. I just can't find it now.

(CALLIE reaches out, but lets her hand fall short of MOLLY’S.) MOLLY: He hated toast more than anything. Made that poor college student period really difficult for both of us. We were living together through college, just the two of us. That was after Mom died, Dad too. One after the other. At their funerals, Henry gave the best speeches. Funny, lighthearted, all heart. He made everything more bearable.

I'm supposed to talk today, at his funeral. I haven't a clue what to say.

(CALLIE grabs MOLLY’S hand.)

MOLLY: He’s my best friend. He always will be. All those moments when I've laughed so hard my abs ached were with him, because of him. It was the two of us for so long. Now, it is just me.

There's no humor in that, is there? Nothing funny about going on alone.

CALLIE: No, that doesn't sound so funny.

MOLLY: What else could I possibly say to make you care if you don’t already? He sometimes wore glasses just because he liked how he looked in them. He used to say I was the better of us two, but he'd say it with a glint in his eye so I never knew if he was teasing. I always tried to get him up here and say it so I knew if he was telling the truth. I’m betting the water would fall. I’ll always bet on his honesty.

(MOLLY sighs. She blinks down, eyes filling with tears.)

MOLLY CONT’D: His favorite flower changed every season. He loved spring the best because the jacaranda trees bloomed suddenly in the spring, bright purple flowers up and down the street. Every year without fail, he’d send me a picture of the street, purple-covered. We’d go walking that afternoon back and forth, back and forth until I got tired and dragged him home.

He didn’t want to leave. God did he love this world. Loved every part of it.

He always talked about something bigger than this town, going somewhere far away, doing something grand. Talked about going somewhere the sun shone brighter. Where it never stopped. He always was talking, Henry. Never did shut up.

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SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

CALLIE: I heard all about that.

MOLLY: I’m sure. He was so quiet towards the end. So sad. He stopped going to the river. I don’t remember what his laugh sounds like, or I’d give that too. You’d love him instantly, if I had that to give. But, it’s been so long since I’ve heard it. Months and months.

CALLIE: I could tell he was different. Stopped sounding so hopeful when he prayed.

MOLLY: The sun was his hope. It was his everything. And it left him to die. You left him to die.

CALLIE: Give me something else. Just one more thing. Break my heart, if I had one.

MOLLY: (quiet) I never bought an alarm clock. He’d come in every morning, bursting with something he had to tell me right away. Something about oranges, or sunflowers, or his dreams.

Yesterday, I slept until two in the afternoon simply because he didn't come and wake me up. I slept and slept. There wasn't anyone there to wake me up.

CALLIE: That’s enough. That's more than enough.

MOLLY: So, you'll help?

CALLIE: I’ll do what I can.

MOLLY: That’s not a yes.

(CALLIE stays silent.)

MOLLY: That’s not a yes. Look at what I gave. Tell me you'll help. Tell me the truth.

(CALLIE stays silent still.)

MOLLY: Fine. But remember, I believe. I’ll believe even if you don’t do a thing. I’m not asking for a reason to keep believing, I just need a little bit of help. I can’t make this happen myself or I

would. I promise, I would. But, thing is, I have to believe you’ll help me. And I do. I do.

(MOLLY gets up, brushes her pants off, and starts to walk back towards town.)

CANYON VOICES

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BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

CALLIE: I’m sure your speech will be great.

(MOLLY freezes, turning around.)

MOLLY: What speech?

CALLIE: Oh. Oh. MOLLY: What?

CALLIE: (quietly) You’ve forgotten.

MOLLY: That was the deal, wasn't it? To forget my brother, even now, when I need his memories most. What I've forgotten, I'll never get back. Make it worth it, you said to me. Can’t I ask you to do the same? Please. I believe in you. All of you. I'll never stop believing. But, please, help me.

(MOLLY turns back and walks into town. CALLIE watches her go before standing, too. She looks towards the mountain, the top where it’s hidden by clouds.)

CALLIE: See what you're doing, you in your argument, you in your greed? Here is a believer, despite everything. Here, you will leave her alone. Of course you will. It's what you've always done.

(CALLIE drops her head into her hands.)

CALLIE: If I do this, I lose everything. They'll take away my power. I'll just be human. I’ll just be dead.

(CALLIE sighs, looking towards the town.)

CALLIE: I don’t want to do this.

(The water below, CALLIE begins to rise.)

BRIDGE: You’re lying.

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Issue 17

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS |ADDISON RIZER

CALLIE: I can’t do this.

(The water pools around CALLIE’S calves, climbing her body. She begins to panic. She knows this water would kill her, it’s got magic in its heart.)

CALLIE: Stop. Stop it. I don’t want to help her.

BRIDGE: You do.

CALLIE: Fine. I do. But I don’t want to die.

BRIDGE: You don’t want to be a God, though.

CALLIE: No, I don’t.

(The water begins to recede. Down to her ankles. Down to the soles of her bare feet.)

BRIDGE: And you want to help her.

CALLIE: I do.

(The water recedes further, below the line of the bridge.)

BRIDGE: So, choose.

CALLIE: Will you let me go to the funeral? Be human just for an hour? Let me know how they feel. Know that this was worth it?

BRIDGE: Yes. CALLIE: I can’t lie anymore. I suppose, all things considered, human isn't such a sad thing to be. Even just for an hour. Just for a minute, I’ll get to feel all the things they talk about. I’ll get to be human. I’ll get to hope.

(CALLIE trails in the direction MOLLY disappeared. Overhead, the clouds part in the slightest opening, to reveal pure sunlight.)

Fade to Black.

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Addison Rizer, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 17

CANYON VOICES

Issue 17

BEST OF ISSUE Volume 2

SCRIPTS | VICTORIA PETTIT

The Mirror

By Victoria Pettit

Characters: Evan: (16) Teenager, youthful and handsome, has residual schizophrenia.

Inner Evan: (16) Identical image of Evan, part of a hallucination.

FADE IN: INT. BATHROOM - MORNING EVAN leans onto the sink, gripping the sides of the cold marble. In front of him is one singular prescription bottle of Clozaril, his anti-psychotic medicine. He looks up into the mirror at himself.

EVAN: C’MON. (Pause) C’MON C’MON INNER EVAN appears on the other side of the mirror.

INNER EVAN: We don’t need those!

EVAN: I have to take them.

EVAN reaches for the pill bottle. His hands are shaking.

INNER EVAN: DON’T grab the bottle.

EVAN: Shut up! Please! (lowers voice to whisper) We’re supposed to be getting better.

The SOUND of the faucet dripping triggers EVAN. He slams his hand against the handle, pushing it back into place. He returns his gaze to the mirror.

INNER EVAN: These pills aren’t going to help? Don’t you know that already? It’s all a lie!

EVAN rubs his temples. He rocks back and forth slowly.

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SCRIPTS | VICTORIA PETTIT

EVAN: I need these pills so I don’t hear you in my head.

INNER EVAN: No. You need me Evan. There’s no way you’ll be able to function out there without me.

EVAN: Yes, I can! (EVAN’S voice grows louder) Even mom said I was INNER EVAN: Mom? Mom?! She doesn’t know you like I do! She doesn’t understand anything about you. She doesn’t even love you.

EVAN: (Pause) Yes. She does. She told me!

EVAN slowly reaches for the bottle. His moments are out of frame in the mirror. He moves slowly enough to where INNER EVAN may not see.

INNER EVAN: She hates you, Evan. From the second you were born she hated you.

Those pills won’t change any of that. They won’t change who you are.. who you really are.

They won’t make her love you.

EVAN: Stop saying that!

There’s a sharp RAP on the door. LIZZIE (18) – EVAN’S older sister, popular, but sweet to her brother. She needs the bathroom before school, too.

EVAN AND INNER EVAN: (In unison) Just five more minutes!

The FOCUS is back on their faces split between the mirror.

INNER EVAN: What about Lizzie, huh? Do you think she loves you?

EVAN: Well… (Hesitates) Well, yeah. She’s my sister.

The attention is pulled from their faces to a cowlick on the side of EVAN’s head. He tries smoothing it down over and over again. INNER EVAN mimics his gestures. They never lose eye contact with each other.

EVAN: This… fucking… hair INNER EVAN: (Mimicking) Pills… won’t… fix… this…

EVAN quits fussing with the cowlick. He releases a heavy sigh, and releases his grip on the sink. There is a long pause between the two. EVAN is thinking.

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EVAN: What about algebra last year?

INNER EVAN: Yeah? What about it?

EVAN: I… We were about to have an episode. But then I, I mean WE… took our pills and everything went back to normal.

INNER EVAN: (Scoffs) Normal? That’s funny.

EVAN: I’m serious! Just listen, okay?

INNER EVAN is quiet.

EVAN: How about that football game? Freshman year? The stands were so crowded and

we were getting thrown around so much. It wasn’t a safe environment for me… for us.

But these (Grabs bottle, shaking it in front of the mirror) these helped.

INNER EVAN: Yeah, I remember that game. We weren’t ready for that kind of social interaction.

EVAN: And mom told us we shouldn’t have gone. She cares about me. About us.

Both scratch their heads, deep in thought.

EVAN: These pills help.

INNER EVAN: (Pause) If you take them though, I go away. I wont be there to protect you. I don’t think you can do this on your own.

EVAN: I can. I’m okay now.

INNER EVAN: Are you?

EVAN: (Shrugs) I… I think so.

EVAN sighs. He looks back at INNER EVAN before unscrewing the cap of the pill bottle.

There is a SHARP inhale of breath from both of them.

EVAN: I need to do what’s best for me.

INNER EVAN: For you? What about me, Evan? I am a part of you, too.

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EVAN: You say you want to protect me, but all you do is bring me harm.

EVAN empties a pill into his hand. INNER EVAN explodes. He POUNDS at the mirror.

The mirror shakes. There is no longer a connection between EVAN and INNER EVAN. EVAN is terrified. His hands shake harder.

INNER EVAN: Throw the fucking pills out! We don’t need it! You only need me, Evan!

Dammit! You need ME! EVAN: (Stutters) No… no. No. I don’t need you. (Looks at pills) I need these.

INNER EVAN hits the mirror again. LIZZIE knocks on the door rapidly. The NOISES add up. EVAN begins to crumble. He grips the side of his head, mumbling.

EVAN: Stop! Please! Just stop… just stop, okay? I won’t take them! I’ll do whatever you want. Just stop!

INNER EVAN settles down. The mirror stops rattling. There is a PAUSE. INNER EVAN: Flush the pills.

EVAN looks up at the mirror in disbelief.

EVAN: (Hesitates) Wait. All of them?

INNER EVAN: Yep. No more. From now on, we’re in control. Not the pills.

EVAN: I… I don’t know. Is this really a smart ideaINNER EVAN: (Raises voice) NOW!

EVAN: Okay… okay! (Pause) Fine.

EVAN takes the pill bottle. He hesitates once more. EVAN and INNER EVAN vanish from the mirror. Toilet flushes.

EVAN and INNER EVAN return to the mirror. INNER EVAN is smiling.

EVAN: What now?

INNER EVAN begins to fuss with the cowlick again.

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INNER EVAN: I’m in control now.

EVAN: WAIT! I thought you said WE were in control. WAIT… WAIT! EVAN’S face dissolves from the mirror. INNER EVAN becomes the center focus. He turns and EXITS the bathroom. On the other side of the mirror, EVAN is pounding and screaming. There is no sound.

FADE OUT.

◼ ◼ ◼

For the original publication and information on author Victoria Pettit, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 18

CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | ANALISA CHAVEZ

The Stranger

by Analisa Chavez

Characters: Tony: A young, hopeless and hardworking daydreamer living in an impoverished city supporting his family. Tony is jaded and unaware of his untapped potential that he hides away in shame until someone dares him to take the chance of a lifetime.

Stranger: The Devil himself. He is charming, witty, diabolical and manipulative.

He loves his job, he lives for it.

Bus Driver: 30’s-40’s, obese middle-aged man. Always with a cigarette in hand and smile on his face. “He’s the one-way ticket to hell.”

Rashad: He is an infamous rapper-singer, dancer. A playboy with “swag” and a smooth talker; confident.

Tony’s Mom: 50’s, diagnosed with cancer; dying. She is kind, caring and loves her children dearly.

Isabella: 8 years old. Tony’s little sister. She’s smart, courageous, assertive in her attitude and sassy.

Setting: A run-down bus stop in the city with graffiti marks on sidewalk. Interior of bus as well.

Ext. Day. A Bus stop. A man is sitting at the bus stop alone, listening to his headphones.

He is dressed in baggy, raggedy, jeans with an oversized T-shirt, jamming out to music. A stranger, in an expensive name brand business suit with a briefcase, sits next to him. “The Stranger” by Billy Joel is playing.

(Song fades: THE STRANGER looks spiffy, is casually confident, witty and charming.)

STRANGER: Excuse me, excuse me!

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(TONY takes off his headphones. TONY is reserved and timid.)

TONY: Yeah?

STRANGER: What’s the last stop on this bus?

TONY: Van Buren.

(TONY puts his headphones back on. THE STRANGER pulls out a cigarette and a lighter. The lighter doesn’t seem to work. He taps TONY on the shoulder, who is listening to music.)

TONY: Hey man, what the fuck?!

STRANGER: Sorry.

TONY: I don’t like being touched.

STRANGER: You got a light? (With a cigarette in his mouth) TONY: Yes. STRANGER: I need a spark.

(TONY looks at him in disbelief. Pulls out his lighter and hands it to him. THE STRANGER doesn’t take it, he cues TONY to light it for him, expectantly. TONY is somewhat amused, and irritated. TONY lights it for him, feeling like he doesn’t have a choice.)

STRANGER: Thanks.

TONY: Don't mention it.

STRANGER: Where you headed?

TONY: I’m going to work. What about you? You look a little overdressed to be taking the bus in South Phoenix.

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STRANGER: Well, if you must know, I take pride in my appearance. Can’t say the same for you.

TONY: I’m headed to my site.

STRANGER: Do you do like construction, landscaping or something?

TONY: So, you just assume because I’m Mexican, I work construction?

STRANGER: I never said anything about you being Mexican, but hey good to know you’re Mexican! Si se puede right?! (Goes to hand-five TONY; TONY doesn’t high five him.) It’s Cesar Chavez... You know Obama said that too. His campaign was a commercial success, thanks to me.

TONY: Right, like you had anything to do with that.

STRANGER: You don’t believe me.

TONY: Look man, whatever you’re on, just leave me alone.

STRANGER: Oh, I’m sober for my business deals. You know, “gotta keep it professional.”

TONY: So, you’re in business?

STRANGER: Oh yeah. Serious business.

TONY: Great. So, what do you do for a living?

STRANGER: I grant people their deepest desires.

TONY: Cool. Well, good for you, making the world a better place and everything.

STRANGER: You know, you don’t seem like someone who is...

TONY: Is what?

STRANGER: Well, I was just going to say happy. You know, thriving and- (looking at TONY’S figure) well-fed.

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TONY: Is this what you do, insult random strangers at bus stops?

STRANGER: It’s just an observation.

TONY: Maybe I’m tired.

STRANGER: You’re young, you’re like 21? You should be full of energy.

TONY: Look at me, I’m not exactly driving a BMW on my way to my dream job.

STRANGER: Why not?

TONY: I’ve never had the luxury.

STRANGER: It’s not a luxury, it’s a right. So, I’ll ask again, why not?

TONY: Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I wake up at 6 in the morning and walk to catch the city bus every day at 8 on an hour commute, counting down the seconds until the day is done.

STRANGER: That sounds shitty.

TONY: I pray that I can get home safely on my way back, just hoping to make it through the neighborhood while avoiding gang members harassing me or trying to recruit me.

STRANGER: So, you don’t want to be in a gang, or have to take the bus for the rest of your life.

You told me everything you DON’T want.

TONY: Yeah, there’s a lot that I don’t want, I guess.

STRANGER: What is it that you do want? It’s not the toughest question...or is it?

TONY: I don’t know, I just work.

STRANGER: You just work. Work to survive? (Hinting at his choice of transportation.) Did you know you humans are the only species on the planet that pay to live on this God-forsaken

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Earth?! It should be free! But it ain’t. You ever wonder why that is? (Taking a last hit of his cig and tossing it.)

TONY: That’s just the way things are.

STRANGER: You think that’s fair? You work your ass off, pay taxes, while your president gets a write-off while his undercover Russian dick fucks your country in the ass. No lube either. You think that’s fair? I mean, if guys like him can have whatever they want and get away with it, why can’t you?

TONY: Because I’m me. There’s nothing special about me, okay. I don’t knowSTRANGER: You can’t even be honest with yourself and say what you REALLY WANT. Hmmm? This construction shit isn’t who you are. If you could be anything, and there was nothing stopping you, what would you want to be?

(After a long pause.)

TONY: I want to be a singer, and I rap a little bit, but my mom says there’s no future in that.

STRANGER: Parents can be the destroyer of a child’s wildest dreams.

TONY: She means well, and I love my mother.

STRANGER: Of course, you do, that’s why you’ll live your life according to her expectations.

Breaking bones and working your ass off until the day you die, just to struggle. Now, that doesn’t sound a lot like love, does it?

TONY: She does the best she can.

STRANGER: You do the best you can. Supporting her and your little sister. Helping her fight stage 4 lung cancer.

TONY: How the fuck do you know that?!

STRANGER: It’s been a rough 6 months hasn’t it, Tony?

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TONY: How do you know my name?

STRANGER: I know everything about you, Tony.

TONY: Hey man, fuck off! I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, butSTRANGER: 6 years old. Kindergarten. 97’. You asked Araceli Gonzalez to marry you and you were crushed when she didn’t accept your ring pop. That didn’t stop you from serenading Becky.

TONY: How theSTRANGER: Your sister is your favorite person. When you were nine years old, your father died shielding you from a gang drive-by, saving your life. He wasn’t so lucky, now was he?

TONY: I’m telling you, man, get away from me!

STRANGER: I know the guilt you feel from his death. If you didn’t ask him to come and see you sing at your talent show, he never would’ve been there to die for you.

(TONY is holding back his tears of the memory.)

TONY: Stop. Just stop-

STRANGER: I know that you cry yourself to sleep every night, praying for your mother’s health.

(THE STRANGER moves closer to TONY, inches from TONY’S face.)

TONY: Who are you?

STRANGER: God hasn’t answered your prayers, has He? And guess what, Tony, He’s not going to. Your mother’s fucked!

(TONY grabs the man by his suit and shakes him angrily.)

TONY: Shut the fuck up! You shut the fuck up, you Wall Street looking piece of shit! You don’t know a damn thing, okay! I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you right now! Right now!

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(The STRANGER begins laughing.)

STRANGER: If I don't know anything, then what’s got you so worked up?

(TONY lets him go. THE STRANGER pulls out another cigarette, puts it in his mouth, then as he snaps his fingers, a candle-lit fire magically lights his finger, and then he lights his own cigarette. TONY watches. Then THE STRANGER offers one to TONY, TONY takes it and THE STRANGER lights it for Tony.)

TONY: Something tells me you’re not here for the bus, are you?

STRANGER: Not exactly. You’ve got a gift. You’re talented. I can take away the pain, Tony. All of it.

TONY: I don’t understand.

STRANGER: Work for me, and I can give you everything you’ve ever dreamt of, Tony. I can cure your mother; your sister won’t have to grow up in this shitty neighborhood.

TONY: It’s not that shitty.

STRANGER: She’s quite the cutie and she’s going to grow into quite the señorita. You know these filthy schmucks rape girls to get initiated. It’s disgusting. You work so damn much you don’t have time to protect your sister. You think your sick mother can? I can get your family out of here. And hell, I can make you famous.

(THE STRANGER brings attention to his suitcase, opens it and brings out a piece of paper with TONY’S name on it, and a space for a signature.)

STRANGER: All I need, is your signature.

TONY: My signature?

STRANGER: In blood, of course.

TONY: No.

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(The Stranger snaps his fingers, and a song can be heard with Tony’s voice from the future.)

TONY: Is that my voice? My song?

STRANGER: It’s a hit, baby!

(THE STRANGER lets TONY enjoy the moment then snaps his fingers and cuts it off.)

STRANGER: But I mean, if you’re not serious about your future investment, then we can just part ways now.

TONY: No, no, no. I just, I don’t know what I’m signing exactly.

STRANGER Well, in exchange for my services...you’re mine.

TONY: Whoa, whoa, whoa! Dude, I’m not into that whole bondage thing.

STRANGER: I’m flattered, Tony. But that’s not exactly what I meant.

TONY: What did you mean?

STRANGER: I want...your soul.

TONY: That seems a little steep, don’t it? I mean, I don’t even know if any of this is real.

(The bus arrives.)

BUS DRIVER: Getting on?

(THE STRANGER looks at his watch.)

STRANGER: You’re right on time. Come on, I want to show you something.

(TONY and THE STRANGER get on bus. TONY begins to pull out his money.)

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BUS DRIVER: Don't worry about it.

STRANGER: Pick a seat.

(Both walk down the bus row and find a seat. The bus begins to travel.)

TONY: So, is this a business trip?

STRANGER: Something like that.

(A young man dressed in black leather pants, with a red muscle shirt, a black leather jacket with a silver chain, and sunglasses begins singing and dancing in the bus. He looks like a star.

A spotlight is on him, and he gives a brief 15 second intro of his talent. TONY is star struck.

THE STRANGER is smiling and begins clapping at the end of his performance.)

STRANGER: Rashad, that was incredible.

RASHAD: Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you.

STRANGER: I know. This is Tony. He’s your biggest fan.

(TONY is still in shock.)

RASHAD: Hey, my man! Wassup, it’s great to meet you.

TONY: I-I-I can’t believe this. You’re Rashad!

RASHAD: Last I checked. Well, it was Dorca Shmorka. You know, before the name change.

STRANGER: Yeah, we had to change it, your parents really screwed you with that one.

TONY: I still can’t believe it. The one and only. Bro, I’m such a fan, truly. Respect.

RASHAD: Thanks, man.

(The bus stops.)

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RASHAD: This is where I get off.

STRANGER: Take care, Rashad. Send me a postcard or something these days. I like to know how my favorite clients are doing.

RASHAD: You got it. We’ll catch up at the Stoney’s after party.

STRANGER: I’ll hold you to it.

RASHAD: Maybe I’ll see you around, Tony.

(RASHAD exits the bus.)

STRANGER: Great kid. Too bad.

TONY: Too bad what?

(TONY’S mother enters the bus. She looks bright, happy and healthy.)

TONY’S MOM: Tony!

(She rushes over to Tony and gives him a hug.)

TONY: A’ma?

TONY’S MOM: Mira me.

TONY: Mom, you look...better. It’s not possible.

TONY’S MOM: This man has cured me, Tony. It is possible.

STRANGER: What can I say, I have the magic touch.

TONY: This is a miracle. A’ma you’ve never looked better. I don’t know what to say.

TONY’S MOM: Sign the paper, Tony, para mi, por favor.

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TONY: A’ma, it’s not that simple.

TONY’S MOM: How can you be so fucking selfish?! You’re not a real man. Not like your father.

He wouldn’t just let me die. He wouldn’t even need a second to think about what’s best para his familia. You make me sick.

(The bus comes to another halt that causes everyone to jerk. TONY’S MOM falls to the floor and has a hard time getting up. TONY begins helping his mom up.)

TONY: A’ma, are you okay?

(His mother’s sudden appearance is deadly, sick and stage 4 lung cancer. She begins coughing blood.)

TONY’S MOM: Look at me, Tony. Do I look okay?

(TONY’S MOM falls to the ground slowly, dying.)

TONY: A’ma! A’ma! Please, please don’t leave me.

(TONY grabs THE STRANGER by his jacket.)

TONY: Bring her back!

(His little sister, ISABELLA, age 7 comes running in from the entrance of the bus.)

ISABELLA: Mommy! Mommy!

(ISABELLA runs to her mother on the ground. Picks up her mom’s head and puts her mother’s head on her lap, caressing her mother.)

TONY: Isabella? What are you doing here?

ISABELLA: How could you let her die, Tony?

STRANGER: Yeah, Tony. How could you?

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ISABELLA: You were supposed to take care of us.

TONY: I’m trying, Bella.

ISABELLA: Then why is Mommy dead? It should’ve been you that died, not Daddy.

(TONY is crying.)

TONY: Bella.

TONY: This isn’t real. This isn’t real...

TONY’S MOM: Oh, but it is, Tony. It’s very real.

(TONY is hysterical at this point. He doesn’t know what’s real or not and his fear has taken over. The camera zooms to his face as he screams in terror at his reality.)

TONY: Nooooooooo!

(Cut to Bus Stop.)

BUS DRIVER: You getting on?

(TONY is suddenly coming down from his terrible experience on the bus, almost like waking from a bad dream. He is alone at the bus stop, looks at his watch, it’s 8 a.m. He’s still shocked.)

BUS DRIVER: Look, I ain’t got all day, you getting’ in or what?

TONY: Yes. (TONY takes the money from his pocket and pays for his ride. Finds a seat. THE STRANGER pops up next to him.)

TONY: Jesus!

STRANGER: Not exactly.

TONY: What the hell do you want?

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STRANGER: You know what I want.

(TONY is silent.)

STRANGER: You’re not an easy one, are you? Look I’m on a time crunch. If you change your mind…Here, take my card, repeat this mantra 6 times. Not 7, not 8, but 6, and I’ll be there.

(The bus comes to a halt. THE STRANGER stands up.)

TONY: This isn’t my stop.

STRANGER: It’s mine. You’re not the only one with a job. (Smiling).

(THE STRANGER jumps out the door. After the doors shut, TONY rips the card in half. His song begins playing on the bus again. The song fades.)

VOICE OVER: We’re back with 103.9 and you just heard newbie artist Tony Lopez with “All My Love” taking over number one for 6 weeks in a row. He just won 3 Grammys, one for new artist of the year. He’s coming to Phoenix, ya’ll. This kid is on fire! (VOICE OVER fades) (TONY looks at the ripped-card in his hand and puts it in his wallet.)

◼ ◼ ◼ For the original publication and information on author Analisa Chaves, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 19

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SCRIPTS | MORGAN HOPER

Reapers

By Morgan Hoper

Characters: Mike Walker: College Student Angela Thanatos: Grim Reaper’s Daughter Sharyn Thanatos: Grim Reaper’s Daughter Grim Thanatos: Grim Reaper John: College Student Fade In: Ext. A college campus-Evening Dissolve to: Int. A college dorm. There is a bed and a desk– Night ANGELA THANATOS is waiting in Mike WALKER’S dorm, going over a long list of names on her tablet. All the names are crossed out except one: Mike Walker.

ANGELA: (to herself) Alright, Mike Walker. You’re the last one of the day, but where are you?

(The tablet in Angela’s hands “dings” one time as Mike Walker enters the dorm. He is on the phone with his roommate. He doesn’t see Angela. She is invisible to living humans.)

MIKE: (on the phone) Yeah, I just got home.

ANGELA: (to Mike) Finally.

(Mike searches for something in the dorm.)

MIKE: (on the phone) Yeah, I’m alone. Where did you put them? No. I don’t see them. What?

Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Yes, I’m sure. I mean, I took Something earlier- just to help me focus on the lecture. (pause) Way earlier. Like six hours ago. I’m good now. I just need a little something to help me sleep. (Pause) which drawer are they in? (Mike pulls a bottle of pills out of a drawer in the desk.)

ANGELA: (to Mike) I bet I can guess what kills you.

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MIKE: (on the phone) Found them. Thanks, John.

(Mike swallows an unseen number of the pills and lies down on his bed. He falls asleep. Hours pass. The list on Angela’s tablet updates: Mike’s name is now crossed out. She walks over to his body, and wakes his soul, releasing it from his corpse. Mike’s soul stands up without noticing his corpse on the bed.)

ANGELA: Hello, Mr. Walker. You slept till you were dead, huh?

MIKE: Like the dead.

ANGELA: Hmm? MIKE: The saying is, “You slept like the dead.” Not till you were dead. (pause) Who are you?

ANGELA: Angela Thanatos: collector of the newly deceased.

MIKE: You’re the Grim reaper?

ANGELA: His daughter, actually. But I am here to reap you.

MIKE: Oh. John. John sent you, didn’t he? Unbelievable. I told him I have a test tomorrow.

ANGELA: Is that why you took the pills?

MIKE: It’s none of your business why I take anything.

(Angela gestures to Mike’s corpse on the bed. He finally notices it.)

ANGELA: All matters concerning the dead are my family’s business.

(Mike inspects his corpse.)

MIKE: This isn’t real, right? It can’t be real. I can’t really be dead, right?! It’s insane. You’re insane. You can’t be the Grim Reaper.

ANGELA: Right, because I’m his daughter.

MIKE: Because reapers aren’t real and even if they were, you couldn’t be one. You don’t even have a scythe!

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(Angela pulls a little pouch out of her pocket. The words printed on the pouch read, “sandman: sleep sound, sleep sand!” She grabs some sand out of the pouch and throws it at Mike’s soul. His soul falls to the ground, dazed.)

MIKE: What was that?

ANGELA: Sleeping sand.

MIKE: Seriously?

(Mike looks at the bottle of “sleeping pills” that killed him and then at the pouch of “sleeping sand” in Angela’s hand. Meanwhile, Angela checks the pouch for an expiration date.)

ANGELA: You should be asleep by now.

MIKE: You’re right. I should be asleep, in my body! I should be resting for my test tomorrow.

Look, I give you my blessing to reap my professor, assuming you absolutely have to take someone.

Just put me back in my body. Please.

ANGELA: You know Mike, People like you are why I prefer to reap the elderly. I reaped an 80year-old woman earlier today, and did she cry or beg? No. She looked me right in my eyes and asked, “What took you so long?” I’ve reaped enough people to have heard all the jokes, but the good ones never get old.

MIKE: At least call an ambulance. I only took like three pills. I bet I can be resuscitated.

(Angela opens the summon to human form app on her tablet. She summons her older sister, SHARYN THANATOS. Sharyn appears carrying a scythe.)

MIKE: (to Angela) I asked for an ambulance. Who is she?

ANGELA: My older sister.

SHARYN: Hello, Angela. Let me guess. You want me to ship him up the river, as well?

ANGELA: Please, Sharyn. I would do it myself, but dad still hasn’t given me a scythe of my own, Mike is not cooperating and my sleeping sand isn’t working.

SHARYN: (to Mike) Do you at least have money for the fare?

MIKE: (to Sharyn) I don’t even have money for textbooks and you want me to pay you to kill me?

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SHARYN: I miss the Greeks. They always paid their fare. Is one coin per person too much to ask? I have debts too.

ANGELA: Sharyn. If you don’t ship him up the river, the soul books won’t Balance out. Do you want the horsemen to find out we failed another audit?

SHARYN: Definitely not. Those four think every failed audit can be corrected with a mass reaping. I still have nightmares about that Ebola scare. Can you even imagine what they’d do now?

I’ll give you a hint, all the humans have nukes. (pause) I’ll ship him. I just really hate charity work.

MIKE: This has to be a dream.

(Angela’s tablet “Dings” three times.)

MIKE: What now?

SHARYN: Triple ding. Scary. The last time I got one of those, I had to reap a god. Not fun.

ANGELA: My shift is supposed to be over.

SHARYN: What’s it say?

(Angela checks the list on her tablet.)

ANGELA: It’s an error. My list must be malfunctioning.

SHARYN: Impossible. Death’s list is more accurate than Santa’s.

ANGELA: I know, but this must be a mistake. Sharyn, my name is on the list.

MIKE: Really sucks when it’s you, doesn’t it?

ANGELA: It can’t be me. I’m a reaper. Old Grim is my dad. I can’t die.

SHARYN: Everything can die. Maybe you should come with me too?

ANGELA: I’m your sister, Sharyn!

SHARYN: So, I won’t ask you to pay the fare.

ANGELA: You are not reaping me! This is a mistake CANYON VOICES

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SCRIPTS | MORGAN HOPER

SHARYN: Is it? You haven’t exactly been the most punctual little reaper, Angela. I mean, how many people have you taken before their time?

MIKE: At least one! She took me way too soon.

ANGELA: Your name is on the list!

MIKE: So is yours!

ANGELA: That’s different SHARYN: It’s not. Nobody cheats death, Angela. The soul books won’t balance, you said it yourself.

MIKE: (to Angela) We could just pretend this night never happened. The both of us could wake up tomorrow, alive.

ANGELA: I’m summoning dad. When he finds out my name is on the list-

SHARYN: Dad writes the list, Angela. Only he could have put your name on it.

MIKE: (To Angela) I really don’t think you should summon him here.

Angela opens the summon to human form app again.

MIKE: (To Sharyn) You love your sister, right? Can’t you just forget about this? Let us go.

(Angela summons GRIM THANATOS to human form. He appears in the room carrying a golf club that quickly turns into a scythe.)

GRIM: (to himself) I can’t have one day to myself in a millennium.

GRIM: Hello, my children. And Mike Walker I presume. How are you?

MIKE: I’m dead.

GRIM: Condolences.

ANGELA: Dad. What is this?

(Angela gestures to the list on her tablet. Her name is still present and waiting to be crossed out.)

GRIM: Your messenger of death.

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SCRIPTS | MORGAN HOPER

ANGELA: The list, Dad. Why is my name on it?

GRIM: Oh, that.

ANGELA: What do you mean, “oh, that?” Are you really killing me off? Is that why you never gave me a scythe?

GRIM: Your past behavior indicated you weren’t ready for a scythe. Angie, everyone dies eventually. But when you’re the reaper, eventually tends to arrive a tad bit too soon.

MIKE: That’s what I’ve been saying! I only took like two pills, for goodness sake.

ANGELA: (to Mike) Two pills? You said it was three before. Do you even know how many you took?

(Insert cut away showing how many pills Mike took. Ether he only takes two or he tosses back a hand full).)

ANGELA: (To Grim) I have never reaped a man who’s name wasn’t on my list. I always follow the list. Even when they act like adorable little crybabies.

MIKE: Adorable?

ANGELA: (To Mike) This isn’t about you!

MIKE: You think I’m adorable.

ANGELA: (To Grim) I’m your daughter. You can take my name off the list.

GRIM: No. I love you dearly, Angela, but balances must be kept and names must be crossed.

ANGELA: And this is how I find out? You couldn’t tell me in person?

SHARYN: If Dad weren’t here, you could have run away. Hidden.

ANGELA: I couldn’t run while my name was on the list! The soul books wouldn’t balance and who knows how many people those four apocalypse junkies would end up killing to rebalance them.

MIKE: Can’t we just fill the soul books with random names or other people’s names? You know like politicians or college professors?

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SCRIPTS | MORGAN HOPER

GRIM: No. We can keep the soul books balanced the proper way or not at all.

ANGELA: I don’t want to die. Daddy, Please?

(Grim shakes his head in denial.)

MIKE: And you think I’m the adorable crybaby?

(Angela and Mike share a heartfelt look.) (pause) ANGELA: (To Grim) Fine.

GRIM: (To Angela) Are you sure?

ANGELA: (To Grim) Reap me.

GRIM: You don’t want to try running or fighting first? I’ll give you the first hit free?

ANGELA: I’m sure, Dad. Just reap me already.

GRIM: Hmm… No.

(Grim offers Angela the scythe in his hands. She refuses to take it.)

ANGELA: You can’t really expect me to reap myself?!

MIKE: That is dark.

GRIM: Check your messenger of death.

(Angela checks her tablet. Her list has been updated. Her name is now crossed out.)

ANGELA: I don’t understand.

GRIM: Consider it a rite of passage. All collectors of the dead must be willing to die.

ANGELA: This was a test?

GRIM: And you passed. A lot sooner than your sister did when I tested her, might I add. If you keep at this rate, I might finally be able to retire.

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SCRIPTS | MORGAN HOPER

ANGELA: (To Sharyn) You knew he was testing me?

SHARYN: Congrats?

ANGELA: I’m going to kill you.

(Grim offers Angela the scythe once more.)

GRIM: And now you have a scythe of your own to do it.

(Angela takes the scythe into her hands.)

ANGELA: Thanks, Dad. MIKE: (pause) So, I get to live too, right?

Fade out

End Scene 1: Int: Mike walker’s dorm. Morning.

Mike wakes the next morning to the sound of an alarm. He checks his phone. The alarm reads

“test day” and the time has elapsed by 30 minutes. While hastily tiding himself up and grabbing his backpack, he notices John’s bottle of pills sitting next to Angela’s pouch of sand. A note on the sand reads “Take this” a note on the bottle reads “not this”.

Fade out End Scene 2: Int: Mike walker’s dorm. Morning.

(John enters the dorm calling out to Mike.)

John: Mike! I think I left you the wrong pills.

(A shot of Mike’s dead body.)

◼ ◼ ◼

For the original publication and information on author Max Johansson-Pugh, please visit Canyon Voices Issue 20

John: Oh, fuck!

Fade out CANYON VOICES

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 11

Nostalgia Dylan Pham Watercolor

Still Chris Parfitt Photography

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 12

Oriental Delight Kevin Tran

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 13

Paradise between 7 Hee Sook Kim Multimedia

Arcencelia Geneva Benton Digital Art

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 14

Mossy Rock Man Aaron Glasson

Grandmother’s Kitchen Gloria Cuádraz Painting

CANYON VOICES

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 15

Lucid Dream Jasna Boudard Photography

La Regalia Juli Adams Oil Painting

CANYON VOICES

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 16

Aliens Driving Cars | Humans Fly UFOs Ryan Wesson Photography

Antigravity Julia Gabrielov Oil on Canvas Celestial Navigation Mark Pugh Oil on Panel

CANYON VOICES

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 17

Crosshairs (2) Rachel Peretic Collage

Ballerina in Yellow Alberto Escamilla Oil

CANYON VOICES

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 18

Untitled 3 Kim Stadin Acrylic

Hi-bee-scus McKenna Ihde Acrylic, Textiles

Nampaweap Remnants Brad Bachmeier Ceramic

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 19

26th Ave. Rain John Bayalis Watercolor

Visions Jefferson Muncy Oil

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CONT:ANIMATE Erik Minter Mixed Media on Aluminum

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ARTWORK

Art – Issue 20

Cloud Zarina Situmorang Oil

Endless Effort Ali Akbar Beigi Oil

Coop the Chicken Sophia Tyler Oil

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ABOUT US CANYON VOICES LITERARY & ART MAGAZINE is dedicated to shedding light on the works of emerging and established writers and artists. Founded in the spring of 2010 at Arizona State University’s West campus by one professor, Julie Amparano Garcia, and six students, this journal strives to bring the creativity of writers and artists to light within the community and beyond. Supported by the students and faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at ASU’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, CANYON VOICES accepts writing and artwork from writers and artists from all corners of our planet and from all walks of life.

The work of maintaining and producing this magazine is entirely student driven. Since its formation, CANYON VOICES has expanded into a full credit, hands-on class. Students build a full literary journal each semester, heading every aspect of production, including soliciting submissions, editing, marketing, design and layout, and publication. We strive to bring you an eclectic range of voices each semester.

OUR MISSION At CANYON VOICES our mission is to provide an online environment to highlight emerging and established voices in the artistic community.

By publishing works that engender thought, Canyon Voices seeks to enrich the scope of language, style, culture, and gender.

CANYON VOICES

CONTACT US Questions, comments, feedback? We would love to hear from you.

Contact us via email at: CanyonVoicesLitMag@gmail.com You can also visit us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/asucanyonvoices

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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

SUBMITTING WORK To submit your work, please send it to CanyonVoicesLitMag@gmail.com. Be sure to attach all the work you wish to submit to the email. You may include an author biography and a photo, which will be included in the magazine should your work be chosen for publication. We are affiliated with Arizona State University, and we uphold academic standards. If your work is accepted we reserve the right to make changes. You will be contacted should your work require more extensive edits. We accept simultaneous submissions.

All documents submitted should be double spaced with a 12 point font, in either Times New Roman or Arial. Poetry may be single spaced. All written documents must be submitted in (.doc) or (.rtf) format. Artwork may be in JPEG format.

All work submitted must have a title.

FICTION Up to two stories may be submitted per issue. Each story may be 20 pages or fewer.

POETRY

CNF

Up to six poems Up to four stories per may be submitted issue. Two pieces may (no longer than be 20 pages. two pages each) per issue.

SCRIPTS Up to two scripts may be submitted per issue. Script maximum 15 pages.

ART Up to ten pieces, with at least 300 dpi or JPEG format (<1 MB).

Include detail on medium.

EXPLICIT MATERIALS

READING PERIOD

Because this is a university magazine, submissions containing sexually explicit material and explicit language will be reviewed and determined eligible for publishing depending on the context of the material in the work. Material deemed inappropriate or gratuitous will be rejected.

Our editors read submissions in August, September, and through October 15th for the fall issue. The reading period re-opens in January, February, and through March 15th for the spring.

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