Tough Lit IX

IdeaGems presents

June 2013 PRICE: $8.50

We ain’t pretty but we’re good and gritty with…

WARNING: Some stories deal with strong themes using strong language. Not for the weak of heart… or bladder.

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Dog with the X-Ray Eyes

by Peter J. Miele

Every issue we present books we believe will entertain, intrigue, and educate. This issue we focus on crime writers.

The Eighth Day of Creation

by Dov Silverman This action novel sweeps through today's conflicts between science, religion, power and greed. Vinegar Joe Jobynski, born in a coffin, a defrocked priest and now Professor of Quantum Physics is an FBI consultant in cases of religious homicide. His adversary Kathy Connors, a beautiful Eurasian and best defense attorney in the business, protects Reverend Paul Smith, a conniving, lying, perverted, murderer. Rev. Smith is charged with the mass murder of his Brooklyn congregation. Smith is a schizophrenic. His second personality is God. The problem arises when it is proven to Jobynski and Connors that Smith's God character really is God. Jobynski was chosen by the Almighty for his work with the String Theory of Quantum Physics and Connors for her legal and TV debating skills. Together they will face Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish and Atheist leaders in three, worldwide TV debates.

The Vatican and World Council of Churches utilize professional hit men to stop Jobynski and Connors from appearing. Protected by the FBI and guided by God, they are betrayed by friends and family, hunted by professional killers and religious fanatics. The book ends with the reader facing two critical questions.

Find this and other e-books by Dov Silverman on Smashwords.com

Behind the Wheel and Other Stories

by Erin Thorne A family discovers who's really in charge when they buy a car that drives itself... The characters from a wellknown fairy tale live on after their story is over... A docile species of farm animal transforms into a pack of ruthless creatures, bent on the destruction of humankind... A werewolf stalks a young girl's backyard... Tiny pets, rescued from certain destruction, are not what they seem... Enter a land of fantasy, and learn more about the hidden side of the world you take for granted.

Available for purchase on

Episode 2 of the Trapman series follows Trapman, Joey and Street Genius as they plan their attack against Rat Boy and the neurotic members of Gangster Ink. Street Genius presents them with the Zoomster, a combination gyro-copter and go-cart, to help them in their lone struggle. When Trapman and Joey surprise the hoodlums at the Pleasure Pavilion, they become imprisoned in a life-threatening trap. Now Trapman helps Joey find the courage he never knew he had. They return from the death trap to engage in an epic and hilarious battle with Snake-eyes, Dollhead and the other racketeers. The dangerous Dog with the X-ray Eyes is temporarily neutralized by one of Street Genius’s ingenious devices. But Rat Boy escapes and the struggle goes on. Can the trio really make a difference in Hope? Will the drug-enslaved denizens of Crack Alley rally to support Trapman? Or will everybody just sit around and drink cappuccino as usual?

Available for purchase on The Spoiler

by Laurie Notch Detective Renee Savage and Detective Caleb Ross arrive on scene at the Old Towne Traven in New Orleans. The owner reported a violent disturbance.

Barmaid Marsha Tucker disappeared.

Upon investigating Marsha’s room, Detective Renee Savage discovers a paperback historical romance series “The Spoiler,” written by Gwynvere, who looks exactly like Marsha Tucker.

Marsha Tucker awakes to find herself in the clutches of a strange man dressed as an 18th-century highwayman. He claims to be Raeph Leicester, the dashing anti-hero of her novel. He and the other characters from “The Spoiler” books are holding her hostage in a large antebellum mansion on the Bayou Segnette. Raeph forces her to write the last chapters of their lives because, since she abandoned writing the series, they have been in constant limbo. Marsha thinks they’re obsessed fans—or worse, actors hired by her unscrupulous publisher (and former lover) Rolfe Lafferty, CEO of TruHeart Publishing, to drive her insane.

The real question remains: can Marsha, the writer, survive her own fiction?

Available for purchase on

Do you have a book that you’d like to promote? Email us the details at ideagems@aol.com

Inside this Issue

Writer’s Tip Jar What’s wrong with this sentence? “O its just the meet curing.”

How about this one? “Each student took their turn to lay down on the mat.” Believe it or not, these are snippets from story submissions. Poor punctuation and grammar are the biggest turn off for an editor. The lack of conscientiousness about commas, semi-colons, quotation marks, dialog lines, and tense continuity will cost the writer with a toss of the manuscript in the can—no matter how good the story.

Want to be published by an established imprint? Then get devilish with the details, like… · Get a good grammar and punctuation guidebook or find one on the Web. When in doubt about “lie” versus “lay” or the proper use of semi-colons and colons, look it up! · Study style sheets to see what publishers specify for page formatting, mechanics, content, and trends. · Keep an eye on continuity. Editors go batty over switching from present to past tense (unless skillfully done) or a setup without a pay-off (i.e., introducing the name of a character who never appears in the story). · Using spell-check is a no-brainer, but always proof with your own eyes. A WSJ book review actually confused “forward” with “foreword”—how embarrassing! · Never send a document without a query or contact info. It amazes me how many submissions I receive with no explanation or a name on the document.

Follow these tips and hopefully they will lead toward happy and successful writing!

— Laurie Notch, Managing Editor

OUR STAFF

Laurie E. Notch, Managing Editor In charge of stories, articles, poems To contact, email: ideagems@aol.com

Book Look

Inside cover

Writer’s Tip Jar

1

Doggone

2

Drowning

3

Aging of the Feline

5

Lost Your Marbles?

5

Cries in the Dark

8

Attention Deficit

8

Making History

9

How Hard Can You Close Your Eyes?

14

Junkyard Dog

14

The Secret Keeper

16

Stabilized

17

To My Mom

17

Marlo’s Big O

18

The Land of In-Between

19

Fear in the Dark

20

Joanna (Part 2)

21

Gavaldene: The Cruel Regime

25

Savage Light

29

Claudia Aragon Associate Editor In charge of copy editing To contact, email: caragon.thewritetime@gmail.com IdeaGems Publications P.O. Box 4748 Portland, ME 04112-4748

Mary Regan, Public Relations In charge of advertising and promotions To contact, email: meregan4@gmail.com

www.ideagems.com ideagems@aol.com

Paul Karwowski, Contributing Editor

Cover art by Hector Arache

© JUNE 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE UNAUTHORIZED DUPLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

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Doggone

by Ann Robinson Today was the third day of the Change, and I do not see the humor in it. This morning we did ten walks before noon. The collar was again too tight and no amount of pointing, gesturing, or whining affected the dog holding my leash. He was a Chihuahua, a feisty little thing, and loving his new role. He sat and patiently watched my attempts at communication, then, with a snort, headed again for the door. I had tried to resist. I figured if I just sat in a chair and refused to get up, what could he do? He was a Chihuahua after all. Well, let me tell you, that didn’t work. He went to the door, barked twice and within seconds I was confronted by a St. Bernard, two Great Danes, a Burmese Mountain Dog, and a Standard Poodle—all standing in a semi-circle in front of my chair. The Big Dogs. I was in trouble. Each of the dogs took a bite on my 10-foot leash, and together they pulled until the choke collar around my neck tightened to the point that I could not breathe. I gave up. Now when the Chihuahua heads for the door, I just go.

None of us in the town have been able to remove either the collar or the leash. When our hands get close they are repelled like two magnets of the same polarity but much, much stronger. We have all tried, with our hands and with tools. Nothing works. The dogs just sit and watch. A few howl. Some snort. Nor have any of us been able to resist. The Big Dogs arrive, and we can’t compete. Those who resist are bullied into submission. It is difficult to deny a St. Bernard sitting on your chest. One man who collects guns attempted a coup. He was startled to discover in the act of shooting at the Big Dogs that his gun would not fire. None of his guns would fire. The dogs sat patiently waiting for him to give up. And of course he did. What else could he do?

I did not have a dog before the Change. Why I now have a Chihuahua is beyond me. My neighbor is an older lady with a Golden Retriever.

Sometimes the Chihuahua and the Golden walk us together growling, whining, and barking at each other in turn. They lead, we follow. Once in a while they turn to look at us and howl together before moving on.

None of us can speak. We have the ability only to growl, whine, yip, and snarl. Several people in the town know sign language and are teaching the rest of us whenever we can meet up on walks or at the dog park, so at least we can still communicate as humans.

We are allowed to eat once a day, although I did hear from some others at the park that they are eating twice. It appears that the dogs are keeping their old schedules. Those of us without dogs before are fed once. I say “fed” although it is the humans doing the cooking and preparation, and the dogs deciding on the meals. They are adept at opening refrigerators and cupboards, pulling out packages, pointing, nudging, and letting us know what they expect us to prepare, for them anyway. We eat only dog food. The dry is tolerable, the wet is just gross.

There are consequences for those of us who try to eat human food. One man was immediately banished to the backyard on a very short leash attached to a tall pole. He could only stand and was left there overnight.

Even worse than the food are the locked bathrooms. We are not allowed to use them. We are expected to go outside as the dogs do. They seem to get a hoot out of watching us. Frequently, several will gather to watch when one of us can’t hold it anymore and goes behind a bush for relief. Sometimes they follow and stare. Showers are also a thing of the past and some of us are beginning to smell like…..well….dogs. This morning, three of my neighbors jumped in the river, clothes and all. Their dogs sat on the bank and howled.

Why this is happening to us is a mystery. There are many theories, most revolving around drugs in the drinking water, government conspiracies, and alien power mongers. Area 51 comes up a lot. I have no clue. But it is getting tiresome. I keep thinking this is a particularly vivid nightmare, and I will soon wake up in my own bed.

But that doesn’t happen. I wake up outside on the ground as do most of the others, leashes attached to the poles that are now everywhere.

Fortunately it is warm weather. The dogs sleep in our beds. A few of us are permitted to sleep inside, mostly those who had dogs before. Those dogs seem to be mimicking their previous lives, allowing their humans to 2

do what they were allowed to do. Those humans who made their dogs stay off the furniture are having a really rough time. One elderly man with bad knees is standing pretty much 24/7.

At the dog park, our leashes are secured on the poles. Those of us with long leashes can sit on the ground. Those with short leashes must stand.

Why some are long and others short, we do not know. The dogs then go off and become their old selves, running, playing, doing dog things. The Great Danes use their big muscular necks to toss the Frisbees. A St. Bernard pulls back a tree limb while a German Shepherd pushes a tennis ball between two branches. The St. Bernard lets it rip and the Retrievers are off. A pair of Dobermans patrol the fence, several terriers dig holes in pursuit of small mammals, and the Border Collie tries to herd everybody.

Today, however, the dogs congregated in a large group barking, growling, and whining. There was also much howling until the Border Collie took charge. The others followed her lead, except for one Rottweiler who seemed to be challenging her authority. At one point he was “barked” down by the rest of the dogs and finally settled. The Retrievers did most of the “speaking,” one at a time, mind you. The other dogs seemed to be listening intently, some chiming in with their own yips and barks. We don’t know what’s going on. We can only watch.

Today is day four and we now know, we think, what all the discussion was about at the dog park yesterday. Most of us did not have electrified collars before today. Only a few “bad” humans had been subjected to them, mostly repeat resistors. Not anymore. This morning every house was visited by either the Border Collie or one of the Retrievers, and the Big Dogs. Our choke collars were replaced with electrified versions. One little chomp on the leash and we are zapped. I blame the Retrievers. I think they pushed for it yesterday and convinced the others. What resistance there was, is now gone. th Today is the 7 day. The dogs dragged us all to the dog park early this morning and stayed with us this time, sitting quietly and waiting. So we, having no real choice in the matter, did the same. Suddenly a human appeared in front of us seemingly out of nowhere, laughing and applauding. We did not recognize him. The dogs did though. Their tails wagged furiously. After a few moments he began speaking, congratulating us, thanking us even, for an exemplary performance.

“Finally,” he said, “after millennia of failing to receive even an honorable mention, I am certain to take top honors in the Mischief on Remote Worlds category of the games! All thanks to you!” Then POOF. He was gone. Human jaws dropped. Dog tails wagged even more furiously and then suddenly they were all jumping around, chasing tails and each other, yipping, yelping, and howling. It occurred to me that perhaps it was not the humans to whom he had been speaking. After a few minutes of celebration, the Border Collie barked three times and the dogs ceased their antics and walked us back to our respective houses. We were all signing frantically at each other as we left. No one knew what it meant.

Then, today around noon, the collars, leashes and poles disappeared.

The dogs have gone back to being just dogs as near as we can tell. We can now speak and are gathering in groups to talk and compare. We all go quiet when we see a dog, watching, staring really, until he has moved on. Then we are all talking at once trying to figure it out.

It has now been 24 hours and all is still normal, but many are afraid it won’t last. There was a town meeting last night and already there is disagreement and arguing about what actually happened. A few claim it didn’t happen. There are those who deny seeing the man in the park and some who think he arrived and left normally— the rest of us just fooled by illusion. Some of us want to call the press, the police, or the FBI. Some even want to call NASA. I think it is pointless. Who would believe us?

News item on a back page of the New York Times later that summer: “The Humane Society recorded an unusually large number of surrenders this month in a small town on the Maine coast. It appears that the residents of this town have given up every single one of their dogs. No reasons were given.”

Ann Robinson recently retired from thirty-plus years teaching high school math and science. She is an avid reader of science and history, and writes poetry as well as contemporary and historical fiction. She lives in Brunswick, Maine with a Golden Retriever who aspires to a prominent role in some future novel.

TOUGH LIT. IX

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

Drowning

by Janna Vought Water rushes through the window. Cold waves lick my chin as they crest inside the car. I cling to the steering wheel with one hand and slam my body into the door sealed tight against the pressure of the water rising outside. I wedge my feet against the center console to gain traction in the black water consuming the vehicle. My teeth chatter; hypothermia creeps into my limbs, turns my flesh to ice.

With another thrust, I shove myself against the door once more, my last effort to escape. Oh my God, I can't breathe. The pressure of the water relents for a fraction of time and the seal breaks.

The door opens. A vacuum siphons me from the front seat of the car and pulls me out into the swirls of liquid darkness flowing through the streets. I struggle to stay afloat. Rip currents reach their fluid tentacles around my legs, try to drag me underneath the surface clogged with tree limbs, swing sets, clapboard siding, a stray cat. A pickup truck drifts past me like a sail boat on open waters. An elderly man peers from the driver's side window, his gnarled hands suctioned to the glass in a last act of desperation. His eyes plead for reprieve from the water set to entomb him. I do nothing. Just beyond the arc of moonlight floating atop the water, I spot the eaves of a house still intact twenty yards ahead of me. With my last amount of will, I propel myself against the steady flow. God, give me strength.

My fingers brush against splintered wood; a shard of waterlogged cedar dislodges and embeds itself under my thumbnail. A swell of water picks me up and slams me against the side of the house. I can't breathe, oh God, please no. My hand grasps the lip of the roof, an overhang that once served as the cover of a front porch where families gathered on warm evenings, sharing glasses of lemonade with sprigs of mint and stories of days past. I cling to the side of the house; I won't let go. I listen to the sounds of thousands of lives ruined sweep past me in a torrent of dirt, water, and pain. There is no other noise only silence: dead, empty, quiet. "Momma, help me!"

I awaken with a jolt. Sweat soaks the patchwork quilt covering me, stains the kaleidoscope of fabrics interlocked in diamond patterns.

My grandmother made it for me when I was born. The frayed edges threaten to unravel, but the stitching remains steadfast against the years of blanket tents, sleepovers, bad dates, and fevers. I shiver against the chill created by the union of my perspiration and the cool night air seeping in from the living room window. I snake a hand from beneath the cover and switch on the lamp beside the couch where I lie.

A game show contestant discovers a stack of hundred dollar bills, a jet ski, and a trip to Hawaii behind a door on the television screen in front of me. Just beneath the woman leaping into the air in exaltation, a breaking news scroll crawls along the screen. I reach for my glasses perched atop my head so I can decipher the message: a tornado warning. This event is nothing unusual for this time of year in south eastern Oklahoma. Tornadoes are as common as fried chicken and potato salad at church potlucks. People in this region of the country take such warnings with a grain of salt. One cannot always live in fear of the unpredictable.

A light rain ricochets off the aluminum gutters of the small house.

The sound comforts me. I welcome any noise in the stillness surrounding me. Since he's gone, the quiet deafens. I peel the damp quilt from my body and walk over to the open window, peer into the deep pitch. In the distance, a flash of lightening illuminates the sky.

For a brief moment, I see his face next to mine in the reflection of the window, his little nose dusted with a smattering of freckles born from too many hours spent in the sun, a shock of copper curls bright as a penny surround a cherub face. Hazel eyes filled with joy and mischief search mine, dark and brooding. Tears obscure my gaze.

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

The lines of his image blur like a water color portrait left in a waterfall. I hurry to brush them away, to catch one more glimpse of him. He's gone again, faded into the night. "Alex, no!"

I collapse on the sofa. Sobs tear my throat. My stomach heaves; I haven't eaten since last night when I managed to eat a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup with my medication. The sight of the congealed red mass as it slipped from the can and flopped into the pan was almost more than I could bear, but I forced down a few bites after I heated it into a thick liquid whose flavor reminded me of watered down ketchup. My doctor warned me of side effects if I took antidepressants and sleeping pills without food in my system.

Tonight, I don't care. I gather my strength and snatch the pill bottles from the end table with quivering hand. I twist off the caps and pour three different capsules into my hand from the vials. I finger the smooth edges of the ellipses as I consider life without my trinity of release: a dark and narrow corridor. I stuff the pills into my mouth and chase them down with the glass of sweet tea I poured myself hours earlier. Tepid liquid coats my tongue like a silicone skin, washes the chalk ovals down my throat. I lean back against the cushions and pull the quilt under my chin. My lids droop; tension seeps from my taut muscles. The last image I see is the tornado warning scrawl continuing across the bottom of the screen, a beacon in my storm. Eyes closed, I slip once more into my nightmare. * * * "Momma, where's the flashlight?" I heard a small voice call to me from the kitchen. I struck a match against the side of the box; the flame sizzled and spit as I touched it to the wick of the candle I held.

"Just a minute, Bud, I'm on my way." I stumbled through the hallway, the small candle throwing light out to stave the darkness of the early morning. I rounded the corner into the kitchen where he stood clad in his Spiderman pajamas and Elmo slippers.

"Hey," I called, careful not to startle him. He swung around, a flashlight clutched in his small hands. The beam of light expanded from his grasp, blinding me as he pointed it in the direction of my voice.

"I found it!" he said triumphantly.

"Yes, I see that. Could you please point it away from me? Mommy can't see."

I walked into the kitchen and set my small torch on the counter while he shone the beacon around the small kitchen. Several of Alex's crayon and tempura paint masterpieces hung interspersed with pictures I hung of the two of us around the spare apartment: together in front of the walruses at Sea World, Alex riding a Shetland pony at the county fair, the two of us dressed as Spiderman and Wonder Woman for Halloween last year. Our apartment was not much to look at, but I had made it our home. The couch I bought at the thrift store was faded and worn; the pillows slouched against each other, absent stuffing from long years spent providing comfort to weary souls resting upon it. Several potted plants scattered the tiny living room, providing a burst of color and vitality against the backdrop of the walls the color of dirty socks. If you turned around too quickly in the kitchen, you'd find yourself transported into the bathroom in front of the tiny porcelain sink. Three steps from the living room led you into the bedroom we shared. It was a tiny space, but given my circumstances as a single mother, I could afford little more.

I moved us to the Gulf Coast after I divorced Alex's father. I needed a change of scenery and I recalled with fondness my time spent swimming in the warm waters that carved lines in the ivory sand when I was young. I found a job as a CNA in a small town just outside of Mobile: Tillman's Corner, a sliver of Americana carved right from the paintings of Norman Rockwell, the kind of place where no one locked their front doors at night or refused to shake the hand of a stranger. A senior care center offered me a position I couldn't

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refuse, so I packed up our belongings, including Smoky the Himalayan cat, into my ancient 4-Runner and we headed south from Oklahoma to our new lives.

I opened the cabinet and retrieved a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of orange blossom honey from the shelf.

"How about a sandwich, Bud?" I asked my son. Only five, his culinary repertoire consisted of hot dogs, mac and cheese, cereal, and bananas. However, he did like peanut butter and I felt a midnight snack was in order given the unusual circumstances of the early morning. I slathered thick slabs of whole wheat bread with the condiments, cut the crust off the sides and set the sandwich on Alex's favorite Spiderman plate on the table. He swooped from the corner of the kitchen, flashlight and red curls blazing, and dropped himself in a chair.

"Momma, when will Doris come?" he asked through a mouthful of sticky bread. I grabbed a napkin and swiped it across his face.

"Sometime today," I replied as I glanced out the window. Through the sheets of rain flowing down the panes, I saw palm tree shadows twist in the high winds barreling in off the water like hands rising to the heavens to ward off the storm's progression. The town remained plunged in darkness; the power went out hours earlier when the edges of the hurricane crept onshore.

"How will we know when she gets here?" He asked me, a blob of peanut butter clung to his chin, bright eyes searching my face in the glow of his flashlight.

"We'll know."

I knew about the storm days earlier; I prepared us according to the information provided on local news channels. Growing up in Oklahoma, I endured my fair share of severe weather, though I never encountered anything like a hurricane. Alex and I went to Walmart, filled our cart with all of the necessities: bottled water, canned goods, candles, batteries, and a cache of hope. We wandered the aisles singing "Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day." I bought him Spiderman coloring books and stickers to keep him occupied during the storm. We stocked up on Smoky's favorite food: canned salmon. We came home and stashed our goods in the cupboards. I thought to myself: We're prepared for Armageddon.

My work allowed nonessential personal the opportunity to take time off to evacuate the area if they chose. We had nowhere to go and I couldn't afford to stay at a hotel. I didn't want to stay at the shelter set up in the church sanctuary or the high school gym, sharing my personal space with a thousand strangers. We would stay in our apartment and wait out the brunt of the storm. My mother called every hour in an attempt to convince me to leave. Her anxiety hummed across the phones line: "Come stay with us. We'd love to see you and Alex and then I know you're safe."

"Mom, Tulsa is too far of a drive. I can't be that far from work.

We're far enough away from the coast. Trust me," I reassured her, "we'll be fine."

Alex dozed next to me on the couch, wrapped in my quilt, Smoky curled up next to him. I couldn't sleep. The winds rattled at the windows; fingers of rain crawled across the glass trying to infiltrate the bastion I created for my son. The battery operated radio crackled and hissed with white noise. An occasional news update managed to fight its way through the static: "Category 2... winds 100mph...flood waters‌ storm surge... evasive action... higher ground..." I lifted myself from the sofa, careful not to disturb Alex, and peered out into the chaos. I tried to make sense of the indiscernible shapes below, but the rain made it impossible. I pressed my face against the glass; shadows plummeted into the swirling pitch. The world wore black wool, smothering all light.

An explosion of sound from the hallway like a mortar round startled me. I ran to the bathroom; fragments of glass covered the 4

linoleum floor. Water and wind whipped through the portal to the outside world.

"Momma!"

I ran to the living room. Alex clutched the quilt against his chest, his cat burrowed in the soft cotton next to him.

"It's okay, Bud, Mommy's here." I grabbed a sweatshirt from the hall closet and Alex's blue windbreaker. Alex remained huddled on the couch where I left him. I scooped him up.

I have to potty!"

"Later, Bud. We have to leave right now, okay?" I tried to keep my voice even and calm; inside my heart raged. I pulled Alex's coat over his pajamas and tucked his bright curls under the hood, blocking the sun with dark clouds.

"We're going for a ride."

"Is Doris here now?"

"Yes, baby, she is."

We left our apartment behind to survive the torrents of rain and wind pummeling its insides like a pugilist in the knockout round. I couldn't find Smoky; he ran into the bedroom when I picked Alex up from the couch. I hoped he found a safe place to hide, but I had more important worries to address: my son's safety. I ran down the dark hallway. Closed doors lined the corridor like mourners watching a funeral procession. Why had I decided to remain at home instead of evacuate with the others? I blasted through the steel door leading into the stairwell. I took the steps two at a time. Alex slapped against me with each step. My shoulders burned with the burden of bearing his weight. His flashlight bounced its beam into the void like stars shooting across the midnight sky.

We reached ground level and I pushed the door open to the rear parking lot where our chariot awaited. The south facing building provided little buffer against the gusts billowing off the ocean. The force of air pushed against my back and sent us careening through the lot. I held Alex in a vice as I struggled to stay upright. Water encased my feet in an ice river. The rain peppered my body like thousands of stones falling from the sky. Alex's mouth hung open; I knew he was screaming, but all I could hear were the banshee howls of the hurricane. She wailed and spit her fury upon us as I made my way to my car, the only one in the lot. Not a soul stirred in any direction, just wind and rain. We were alone, isolated like the last survivors of the Apocalypse.

A tree limb surfing along the current of flood water slammed into my shin. Flesh tore from my bare leg; a long gash carved its way along the side of my calf, weeping blood into the small river. I unlocked the door and tossed Alex in to the passenger seat.

"Hang on, Bud," I told him as I strapped his seatbelt across his chest.

"Momma, I'm scared! Where's Smoky?"

"Smoky's fine, okay? He's fine! Cats have nine lives, right?"

I threw the car into gear and headed for the parking lot exit.

Water flowed through the streets, cresting just below the undercarriage of the car. Where should I go? Do we try to make it to the shelter, or do I just drive north? The car crept through the flooded streets. The only light came from my headlights half submerged in the rising water. A crumpled stop sign floated in front of the car followed by a tricycle. Tree limbs and dislodged remnants of houses clogged the water, narrowed our passageway. Water snaked around the car like a boa constricting its prey. The engine choked and sputtered as it filled with water. Don't panic, Don't panic, I told myself. The car rocked against the flow of water. Waves slapped against the sides of the car with force, demanding entrance.

I had no choice, either try to make it to a safe location or let the waters carry us away.

Glass splintered when I smashed the window with the small tool box I kept in the backseat for emergencies.

TOUGH LIT. IX

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

"Listen to Mommy. We're going to swim, okay? You hold onto me as tight as you can."

"Momma, nooo! What if I float away?"

I grabbed his hand in mine and pressed it to my lips; it tasted like peanut butter. " Mommy will never let you go. I promise" He nodded his head; a deep breath shuddered through his small frame. I climbed out the opening I created and plunged into the waist deep water filled with mud, memories, and destruction. I reached my arms through the car: "Come on, Bud." Alex crawled across the console and wrapped his thin and brittle arms around my neck. I hooked my arms around his chest and maneuvered him through the window.

The will of the current ushered us away from the car. We drifted atop the water, a life raft and its lone passenger. Pebbles of rain struck the water's surface and bounced into my face, obscuring my vision. I kept a firm hold on Alex, making sure his head remained above the surface. We floated past the drug store, massive oak trees on their sides with vehicles wedged into their branches, the ice cream parlor where I took Alex to celebrate his fourth birthday. I clung to my child in his blue windbreaker. His body convulsed with the chill of the water, his Spiderman pajamas adhered to him like another layer of skin. God please help us. My eyes scanned the water in search of an outcropping of a building, a downed tree, anything to provide us a way out. A blow across my back ripped the breath from my chest. My body reverberated with the shock of the brutal strike. For one moment, a fraction of a second, a hiccup in time, I released my hold on Alex. With cunning certainty, the water attacked. It swept my son up in its fugitive grasp. I reached out for him, but all I caught was a handful of nylon fabric.

"Momma!" he screamed as the river of filth and waste thrust and arced against him with violent desire. I propelled myself against the current working to keep him from me. His head bobbed upright, bright curls plastered to his alabaster skin, the last time I saw my baby. * * * I cannot come to terms with the death of my little boy. I searched for him. I freed myself from the water's fluid grip and went running through neighborhoods, pounding on doors in hopes that others as foolish as me tried to ride out the storm. House upon house offered no reprieve from my isolation. I screamed his name into the night; gusts of wind swallowed my voice in spite. Exhausted, I cowered on the front porch of an empty two story Victorian charmer, the gingerbread roof demolished by the wind, and waited for the sun to break the dawn. I must have dozed off; I awakened to an EMT shaking me. I realized the trembles I felt were not from his grasp, but my own body convulsing against the chill buried deep within my bones. Wrapped in a heavy wool blanket in the back of the ambulance, I recounted my story to a police officer, who in turn sent out a radio call for an attempt to find an endangered child.

Endangered窶馬ot by abduction, sex offenders, or an act of God; endangered by my own hand.

They found him two days later in a field not a mile away from where we abandoned our car. He still had on his Spiderman pajamas and blue windbreaker. An Elmo slipper encased his right foot. They found him curled up, a smattering of magnolia petals clinging to his auburn hair, in a patch of green, too green for the day. He lay amongst a scattered of credit card statements, shopping carts, and splintered wood, his lifeless body deposited like refuse at a dump site. Down the way, they found an elderly gentleman crushed by his pickup truck. A couple still lay in bed together in a house up the street, pinned beneath a pitch pine, holding each other with all of their might.

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

The coroner ruled it death by drowning. I call it filicide: a mother murdering her child. I cremated his tiny body, burned his red curls I ruffled each morning when he jumped onto my bed, his pert freckled nose that twitched when he smelled chocolate chip cookies baking, his defiant chin when I told him it was time for bed, gone in the heat of silver flames. My mother flew down to retrieve me, to carry me home to Oklahoma. I bore little on the trip home: a small suitcase filled with what remained of my belongings, my son's ashes in a brass urn, and incomprehensible grief.

Time did not heal. I attended therapy sessions for a month before I tired of reliving the experience in front of strangers each week. I turned away phone calls from concerned family and friends. My mother's home burst with condolences; I chose not to listen. I cried until my tears ran dry. I refused to bury Alex's ashes. His father stopped by one evening, belligerent and drunk, just like when we were married, screaming at me from the driveway how I murdered his boy.

"You always were a selfish bitch, never worried about anyone but yourself!" he spat through a mouthful of Budweiser. "He's dead because of you!"

Months after the hurricane, I moved out of my mother's home and into my own, a small bungalow tucked behind the farmhouse of the Jennings' just outside of Tulsa. I went to school with Matt Jennings. I remember his perfect white teeth; when he smiled, it looked like a row of Chiclets. His arms bulged with the exertion of hoeing corn rows and wrestling cattle for branding. When his parents learned of my personal tragedy, they offered for me to stay there until I recovered. I recall them huddled at the kitchen table with my mother, their whispers just a sliver below a shout: "How is she doing?" Mrs. Jennings inquired in forced murmur.

"Not well," my mother responded in a quiet roar, "she needs help getting back on her feet again."

"I don't know if I could ever forgive myself," Mrs. Jennings said in a normal tone, neglecting any attempt to shroud her comment in secrecy.

Mr. Jennings grabbed her thigh and squeezed and cleared his throat in hopes the loud grumble would camouflage his wife's blunder. I didn't stir from my place on the sofa in the other room; my eyes remained glued to the brass urn perched above the television. I imagined my son, face up inside a wooden box, his fingers curled, arms welded open as if moving into an embrace, waiting for me to save him from the strands of fire singing a latticework of shadows on his skin. I heard nothing but silence. * * * The thunderstorm dredges me up from the mire of my bad dreams. I open my eyes to black air. The game show antics portrayed on the television screen disappeared, and the small lamp next to me no longer held an amber glow as it did earlier. I wrap myself in the quilt that still holds a faint scent of Alex in its patchwork pieces. I smile, recalling evenings spent under the cover of batten padding watching movies. His buttered fingers sought mine as we munched popcorn and giggled at the antics of cartoon characters, his voice a wind chime skipping along a May breeze.

A finger of lightening illuminates the front room for a second. Just beyond the window, I see the wind whipping the Chinese elm that stands sentinel over the front yard. Pellets of hail pound the roof, shred the white petunias Mrs. Jennings planted for me in the flower bed just this morning. I clutch the quilt closer. Something circles in the sky above me, defying laws of gravity. From somewhere in the darkness, a low howl buzzes in my ears. It mesmerizes me, calls me forward.

I wander across the room. Cabinets filled with dishes slam open, sending the contents crashing to the floor. I want to see. Drop my

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5

quilt on the floor; shed my grief, my sorrow and inhibition. Clad in a t-shirt and underwear, I feel no cold. The warmth of your presence fills me. Another flash of light erupts in the sky. I see you coming close, illuminated by the electric air, crawling across the dark lawn.

You've come back to me, haven't you? My sweet little boy. The house heaves and contorts; the roof peels back from the frame like the lid on a can. How beautiful the bright blackness, the little bits and pieces floating in the air—fragments of life.

I reach for the urn resting on the coffee table. The wind shrieks with approval. Erase my memories, the water, the inked sorrow that carried me from you, the water, the cold, starless night. The front door with the silk flower wreath Mrs. Jennings hung for my arrival rips from the frame and lifts into the nothing. I run to the front porch. Each board makes a final attempt to save itself from the wind tossing them to far flung regions of the universe. I hold onto the rail, the urn still clutched in my right hand. Here, I finally pray in relief of the lifelessness approaching. Be done with it. The lid lifts from the small metal jar. I breathe you out into the air and watch you rise like rain.

"God, give me one more day with him!" My lungs fill with my fate; pressure collapses my chest. With one final draw of life, I inhale my heaven.

Flying, I am part of the sky, lifted from my pain. I close my eyes, my arms outstretched. I split into a thousand pieces, my puzzle unsolved. The tunnel closes; through the radiant ebony, I search for you. How did I let you leave me? Through the fire burning, you find me, pull me close and kiss my hair. I bury my nose in your red curls, soft and plush as the leaves emerging from the early spring branch.

The house is below me, but I'm not afraid. You squeeze my hand wrapped in your tiny fingers.

"It's okay, Momma. I won't let you go."

The gray moonlight hushes my weeping. Together we climb.

Janna Vought graduated from American Public University with a Bachelor's in English and Lindenwood University with a Master's of Fine Arts in creative writing. She has an extensive and varied publication record, with over thirtyeight works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction featured in numerous literary journals and magazines. Her first book, Evolution of Cocoons: A Mother's Journey into Mental Illness and Autism, premieres September 2013. Visit her at www.shriekingmuse.com

Aging of the Feline*

by Nyja Florence Attenborough Life fiercely fading Hanging grimly by tiny claws; Creeping along at half Its weight.

Now a silent beauty Always under my feet; Painfully following me everywhere— Warmth vainly searching for warmth.

Sadly we said goodbye On that cold winter’s night.

In the glare of the hospital Beauty faded in sleep. *For my beige & brown Tonkinese, once so bright & captivating.

Nyja Florence Attenborough is a retired mother of three daughters and a grandmother of three grandsons. She is a native New Yorker and has lived in this city all her life. It has taken her 72 years to come out of the shadows and share her thoughts with this big wide world. Nyja is currently working on a collection of her work over the years.

6

TOUGH LIT. IX

Lost Your Marbles?

by Casey Cromwell

The steam from his coffee surrounded his hand like a handshake, tickling his fingers and stroking his palm before he blew it away. The air sat heavier than usual, a layer of mist coating any spots of bare skin. Invisible. Invincible. His favorite weapon.

“Beautiful day, honey? I know you love the smell of mist in the morning.” The woman, his wife, wrapped her arms around his back and smiled, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. “Another day in paradise.”

He shrugged, staring at the rows of blond curls trapped between metal barrettes. Light bounced off them like dots and it had to originate from somewhere. He looked up at the sky and only saw gray. Beautiful, perfect gray. A hidden crack?

His wife stepped backwards, and with her went the lights. “Come on, dear. The kids are waiting. Pancakes or waffles? Milk or juice?”

“Waffles and milk.” He paused. “Please. I’ll be there in a minute.”

He waited exactly that, gazing at the long hand of his wristwatch before he moved the sliding glass door ten inches to the right and walked inside.

His two children, young adults now, sat at the metal table in the center of the kitchen. Magnetic placemats, blue, green, purple and red, segmented the wooden table into four equal sections.

Sometimes he liked to meddle and switch the mats – blue to the right, green to the left, purple and red travelling north or south from their past position— but the kids sat in the same place nonetheless.

Each time they did, the knots in his shoulders loosened as he imagined his voice echoing within their thoughts. Don’t change based on your environment, change your environment around you.

“Finally, Dad. What took you so long? You’re always at breakfast fifteen after.”

“Just admiring the view,” he said. “How’s my favorite quarterback and head cheerleader?”

His daughter smiled, looking down at her plate. Two pancakes, two cherries, and a banana: an edible grin. “I still can’t believe I got the spot! I thought Lucy would beat me for sure.”

“You did everything you could to get it. Hard work pays off.”

His daughter winked as if she could feel the vibrations of his fingertips against his wallet across the table. “So does a bit of financial initiative. Coach loved my determination.”

His wife’s arrival stopped him from replying. The family ate silently for ten minutes until he saw his watch winking six forty-one. Ten days before school officially started, he’d driven the car from home and back three times, clocking the trip and taking the average duration. Now they left at exactly six forty-seven each morning. If they left two minutes earlier, the kids waited around in abandoned hallways. Two minutes later, traffic began to pile up. Of course, the kids always needed five minutes after breakfast for their final primping, so he set his alarm for forty-two after. They might as well enjoy the luxury of preparation whenever possible.

Seconds after his watch beeped, his son and daughter stood and stepped away from the table, careful to not stub their toes on the metal clamps cementing their chairs to the floor.

Abandoning the table shortly after his kids, he cleaned off his empty plate and placed it inside the dishwasher. Two small clamps fastened against the edges of the dishware with a click. He’d created quite a business ever since the Crash ten years ago. He called it “The Control Project” and now nearly every house in the subdivision used his metal hooks and magnets. Only the houses of disbelievers embraced one-legged chairs, expensive lamps and floating TV’s.

“Why should we worry?” The protestors asked, standing near his company entrance with cardboard signs bleeding red. “It hasn’t happened in decades. And if it does, what can we do?”

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Suddenly, a hand pulled on his button-down shirt. “Dad, it’s time.”

Six forty-nine. Past time.

“Kiss your mother goodbye and grab your coats,” he said, pecking his wife on the lips before holding open the door. “Let’s hurry before we hit traffic.”

Careful not to muss her hair, Mother hugged both kids tightly and called, “Make good choices, darlings!” as they ran out the door, each holding a red jacket and brown paper lunch sack in either hand.

Despite the traffic, he dropped his kids off at the high school’s front entrance, freshly painted with shiny gate work, only a few minutes later than usual. Except, listening to the quiet beeping of his blinker while he waited to turn towards work, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t force his steering wheel to twist to the right, even with a meeting to discuss future product designs hanging over his head. Instead, he drove north, past his office, past his house, past the familiar road programmed into his brain after 260 days of repetition.

For the first fifteen minutes of the drive, hands waved to him from front yards and upper windows. Mr. and Mrs. Stiles sat in wooden chairs playing cards on their patio (feet still pushing up and down on the ground as if rocking chairs were still legal). Delilah wore strips of paint on her cheeks from changing the color of the barn. Tommy and Nick ran through the sprinklers, their clothes soaked black.

After another five minutes, the scene changed. Shutters stayed closed and paint chipped untouched on houses either empty of humans or human care. Removing his foot from the accelerator, he let the car coast along with his mind. He hadn’t visited this part of town in years, since his first baby played kickball with his wife’s uterine lining; since he learned to cement over the cracks in the main sidewalk and walk away from those that couldn’t be fixed.

Pulling over to the side of the road, he closed the car door, careful not to send mud flying onto his dress shoes, and walked towards the end of the road. Eyes on the ground, he followed the black skid marks tattooed on the asphalt and haphazardly covered by streaks of paint. He knew if he kept running, neighbors miles away would hear the smack of his body as it collided with the town’s invisible border. In elementary school, a little girl, Muve, died by crashing her bike into the perimeter. Flowers grew by the site.

At the last house before the edge, he paused, staring at the garden.

Unwillingly, he imagined the front porch of his own home with his wife standing with two babies in her arms, one pink and one blue, surrounded by green. The vines had been coaxed into even parallels on carved spikes, flowers were carved into blooming arrangements, and grass was constantly cut a height of one inch. When freed from work, he focused on his landscape, basking in the chance to design a world completely by his own head and hand.

The brush in front of him, his mother’s old garden, his old garden, grew freely, plants entwined in indecent embraces, grass and trees blending into unitary forms. As a child, he’d hidden beneath the flowering stems and built forts out of the tree’s shedding branches. Streaks of light scars peppered his upper shoulders and knees from wood scratches or uneven sunburns. His children’s skin appeared uniformly flawless, virginal to nature’s fury.

“Boy! What cha’ doing in this part of town?”

Jerking his head up at the sound, his hand fell away from the offending foliage before he buried them deep inside his pants pockets. Mrs. Shacke, the neighborhood’s informal guardian back then acted as the Crash’s informal spokesperson now. “Walking. Just... walking.”

The old woman snorted. “Walking. Enjoying the view? Like you still folk ever do anythin’ without a three-step plan and a world map.”

A world map the Crash had left torn and blackened. For a moment, the scar tissue in his throat ached and his face muscles tightened. Crashing concrete and flying trees invaded his brain, until he remembered his family and the house built with his own dream and body.

“You’re just dying for the next one?” he yelled. “That makes you so much better?”

Yellow teeth and cracked lips shook as she laughed. “Not better. Free.

Aware.”

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

Free like the garden vines and flowers strangling the spotty sidewalk.

Aware and anxious of the danger held over the heads of others who happily worked, married and raised their children.

Like he would do now.

“Have a good day,” he said, striding quickly to his car and slamming the door. Even when he set the car air conditioning on full blast, he felt the heat of her laugh against his ears, heard the rough catch of snot and saliva in her throat that most people try to hide.

Go home and hug the wife. Go to work, raise the kids and teach them right with money and naïveté and domination over their surroundings.

The mantra repeated over in his head like the photo of his family’s Christmas card. His wife and daughter had gone to the salon that day, returning with painted nails and curled haircuts, while his son threw on his Varsity jacket and he posed in a suit. The perfect American family, bred and trained.

That’s when he heard the scream.

Jerking hard on the steering wheel, he threw his head out the car window and looked up to the sky.

Blood red replaced the gray swirls that moments before had blanketed the sky. Red vines expanded across the sky like legs of an enormous spider, moving slowly but with purposeful intensity.

“We’re the flies,” he murmured, “We’re the Goddamn flies!”

Buzzing around, screaming and flying into walls from the sight of red in the sky because no matter what we do, we always get splat.

The shaking hadn’t started, but it would. Oh, he knew it would. He had to make it to the house, to the safe haven beneath the floorboards, made of impenetrable metal lined with cotton, where rubber chairs hung between floor and ceiling bolts. She’d wanted windows, but he’d forgotten. No reason to see the havoc raining down outside, to witness the collapse of the perfect world around them.

Tires screeched as he weaved through abandoned cars and shopping carts. He saw the frantic faces of mothers and daughters as they crouched under building roofs, as though that would help them when the world starting spinning. He imagined his wife sitting in her chair right now, strapped and ready to weather the monstrous storm turning their world upside-down. Worrying about him...the kids...

Suddenly, he felt the hairs lift off his head as the tires jumped off the track. The road was spinning too rapidly for him to adjust his steering.

Miles away, his wife jiggled and jumped and flew from side to side like the plastic end of a yoyo until the sound of snapping rubber smothered her last scream. * * * The teen’s tongue stuck slightly sidewise from his mouth as he focused on the trajectory of his last shot. Rolling the marble between his fingers, he scraped the remaining dust off with the edge of his fingernail. It had a nice color, clear with red stripes across its tops and sides.

“Stop stalling!” Another boy hit him on the shoulder, nearly knocking off his baseball cap. The golden bill covered his gaze. “Come on, loser.

I’ve got you beat. One marble left.”

He shrugged, pushed the hat back into place and continued rubbing his newly found treasure. He spit on it and rubbed it a little more. Now for the game. He smiled and crouched down, resting his chin against the hardwood floor. He eyed the black marble in front of him and rolled his red striped marble against the floor. Bounced it a couple of times. Shot.

Glass shrieked against glass and the black marble skidded out of the circle and under the sofa. They forgot about it. For now.

Collecting his winnings, he tucked his red marble into his bag, barely noticing the slight crack building under the marble’s skin.

The boy whose black marble had been eliminated shrugged. “Lucky shot.”

Casey Cromwell is a senior at high school and a Marine Brat. When she is not busy doing schoolwork, enjoying time with friends and family or playing soccer, she loves to read and write. In her poems and stories, she enjoys toying with one's perception of reality and exploring the "why's" and "what if's" of the world. Next year, she plans on pursuing a career in writing at Point Loma Nazarene University.

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7

Cries in the Dark

by Gillian Scott

The quiet of the forest was broken only by the sound of splattering rain drops that showered down like the tears of an unloved child. A mist shrouded the lake obscuring the house from view, but I knew exactly where it was—the stone masonry house that had once boasted a splendid facade and played host to an equal number of splendid gatherings. I could hear the squawking of the water birds as they made their way across a showcase of flowering water lilies. It was a scene of matchless loveliness, surreal in its unique charm. The house now bereft of any former grandeur still managed to give an impression of aloofness, it stood tall and proud, an icon against a backdrop of forestland beauty.

Its dilapidated state was far removed from the illustrious home of my childhood and the unparalleled splendor of the gardens that had been my mother's pride of which she boasted to no end. They now appeared a blanketed array of meandering pathways and broken-down fences—a sad reminder of a previous life.

The rains had been fitful all morning, but the clouds having eventually cleared to reveal flake-like rays of sunlight which filtered down through tall, majestic trees and allowed me to glimpse the home of my past. Its run-down condition did not detract from my remembrance of its former beauty, and I was momentarily overwhelmed by the profusion of memories that came flooding back. The chirpings of a Cardinal perched high in a tree briefly diverted me from my musings, and I watched enrapt as the dappled sunlight bathed its feathered coat in colorful glory. It was a captivating moment, another exhibit of Mother Nature's simple and uncomplicated beauty. The bird eventually flew away, and I was drawn back towards the house wondering if the memories would indeed ever let go of me or I of them. Heaven knows I had tried to forget, to escape the abominable atrocity of that night, but I appeared stuck in a time warp—a past filled with insurmountable pain and paralyzing terror. I was living in a Pandora's Box of memories that simply refused to die.

The soothing silence of the night was disturbed by the utterances of a night owl and listening to its eerie hooting I was strangely comforted by its presence. It was much later in the black of night that the intruder entered the house, a bulwark to a hideously shameful crime. The police assumed it the random act of a psychopath (which of course it was), but I knew the offender’s identity and yet could tell no-one. The assailant was on a spree of violence, a rampage fueled by an adrenaline rush that could not or would not be dismissed. His actions were not the result of some misguided retribution, but borne out of a purely involuntarily biological need. His body required it—indeed demanded it—like an addict needed a fix. The fact that he was able to achieve sexual gratification from these sordid acts of violence was just an added bonus.

No one heard him enter and no one saw him leave. However, I had sensed the footsteps on the stairs long before I heard them, the thump of a footfall on creaking wood followed by a heavy dragging sound. I listened for a while for any further noise but none came, and so I snuggled beneath the sheets to bury my face beneath the myriad of pillows. Somewhere between sleep and consciousness, I recall watching shadows of frightening, faceless figures dance across the ceiling.

However, eventually the beckoning world of castles and kings and knights in shining armor was too hard to resist, and I was transported to a land where every adventure left you breathless for more.

The footsteps I had heard, or at least thought I had heard, did not come again. Sleep had justifiably claimed me. It was sometime later that I was awakened by an echoing scream that seemed to rock the very rafters of the house. The cries in the dark came again and again as I lay awake whimpering under the hooded cloak of night. The fuzzy hair on the nape of my neck and young, girlish arms stood to attention. My body was betrayed by a paralyzing fear that induced uncontrollable shivers, but still, I did not utter a sound. I felt the warm, wet liquid trickle between my legs and gasped in shame at the realization that I had urinated in my bed.

Then I saw it! Eyes of coal set in a face of insufferable scorn that stared back at me from across the room. The man’s unflinching gaze of loathing 8

held me mesmerized. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He just stood there—completely still and expressionless. Even for one so innocent, I knew without doubt that I was in the presence of evil. I could see him quite clearly now as he stood in the doorway where the moonlight cast an eerie glow about him. My eyes were drawn to the large, heavy blade he held in his hand. It gleamed bright and shiny, except for the dark, reddish black liquid that trickled down the edge and dripped to the floor.

His face appeared a contorted caricature, and for some unknown reason, I remember thinking that he somehow looked familiar. As he advanced further into the room, I gasped, for I did indeed recognize him. I knew exactly who he was! The crescendo of a blood-curdling scream rebounded into the night, and I remember wondering where it had come from until I realized… it had come from me.

He swung the blade with vindictive malevolence once, twice, three times, striking me again and again in a frenzy of blows. Deprived of both strength and power, I was helpless to stop him. The blade sliced my arms, legs, and torso. The blood splattered walls and ceiling. I recall crying out before hearing the sound of demonic laughter as the final blow severed my head. It was my last temporal memory.

I wander the grounds now a haunting wraith, a child lost forever in a world in which she no longer belongs. I am but a character to be found amongst the pages of a macabre manuscript awaiting its journey's end.

My dreams of castles and kings have long since ceased, replaced by a continuous nightmare of blood, mayhem and murder. As night descends, so does my mist of tears, for I hear the haunting cries ring out, and I know that they are mine. I search for solace, and it must be found. If not, I will be destined to remain a disembodied spirit, a haunting soul left to wander among the living who are deaf to my pleas to catch my killer.

Gillian Scott was born in the United Kingdom and emigrated to the United States in 1981. She currently resides in Tamarac, South Florida where she is married to local attorney Richard Entin. She has one daughter Farrah who currently attends University majoring in Criminal Justice. Gillian’s book, Island People, can be found on www.publichamerica.net.

TOUGH LIT. IX

Attention Deficit

by Gregory A. Andrews Where is the value?

What is the time?

Where is the space?

Where is the rhyme?

What is the reason?

Where does this go?

What is the season?

Why is there snow?

What is that color?

What was that song?

When is my appointment?

Why’s this so long?

When was the moment?

When did it pass?

Why is it over? ____________?

Gregory A. Andrews has always had a passion for reading, so it only seemed natural that he would give writing a try. After taking an adult education course on writing fiction, he started to put together the stories that had been floating in his head for years. He is also a musician, sketch artist, and zombie enthusiast. He lives in Brunswick Maine, and will be attending SMCC for Liberal arts starting in the fall of 2013.

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Making History

by Zachary Vaudo

This is no way to spend a Saturday, Nora thought to herself as the Range Rover made its way down the open country road. Saturdays are for relaxing. Resting.

Instead of resting, Nora found herself in the back seat of an S.U.V well passed its Wash-Me date, surrounded by cameras, tripods, notebooks, flashlights, and three of her fellow writers from her school's student paper. Sharing in her weekend servitude were Kirk (unofficial group leader and resident pretty-boy), Thomas (photography geek and Nora's more recent friend), and Jaime (former cheerleader turned self-proclaimed "artsy" type). Not exactly the closest-knit group: if not for the paper, they probably wouldn't know that each other existed, but life is funny like that sometimes.

Nora was occupying her time on her MacBook while the rest chattered in the background. She could hear their words, but none of it was really registering. She tended to zone out on her computer.

Now and again, though, their conversation would leak in.

"How much longer 'til we actually get to this place?" Kirk groaned, drumming impatiently on the steering wheel. He was an incessant drummer.

"Not much further," Thomas said checking over the directions--cell service sucked out here, so hooray for paper print-outs. "Town center's up ahead. We pass through it and kick on to the site."

Kirk shot him an exasperated look. "I thought this was supposed to be another four or five minutes!"

"Forty-five minutes, Kirk," Jaime said, leaning between the front seats. "Forty-five."

"Oh, Christ..."

Thomas and Jaime laughed at Kirk's expense. Thomas reached around behind his seat and nudged Nora's knee. She jumped, nearly spilling her precious laptop to the floor.

"Gah! Shit! What?"

"You still with us back there, Nora?" he inquired.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah." Master of words, she was.

"You've been jacked into that thing for most of the ride."

Nora readjusted the MacBook on her knee. "I'm reading up on the site. Might as well lean about it more if we're going to be shooting it."

This had to be the most boring and pointless task she'd done for this paper to date. The editor had called it a "local history interest piece" when she'd assigned it out. Nora wondered if she was being punished for some unknown offense, some kind of delayed karmic retribution that forces students out into the middle of Bumfucknowheres-ville on a Saturday--she couldn't stress that part enough.

Jaime turned to her with a slight bounce and a grin. "Well, share with the class," she bubbled.

You can't take the cheer out of the cheerleader, Nora thought to herself as she scanned the page for where she left off. Then again, Nora looked like she was most at home at a Manson/Cradle of Filth double-header, so she admitted a little bias in the matter.

Jaime playfully punched shoulder, as if to reiterate Nora's thought.

"C'mon," she chided, putting on a faux dramatic face. "Regale us with a tale of misery and woe about our subject."

Nora made a face as she found her spot on the page. Jaime may have been poking fun at her, but it was a pretty crappy story. "It was the biggest accident to happen within the town limits in the past forty-something years. House set fire back in the seventies and burned everyone inside to death."

"Anyone famous?" Kirk asked from the front seat. Jaime reached over and smacked him lightly on the back of the head.

"Really? That's the important part?"

Kirk rubbed his head. "Ow... dammit, Jaime: driving."

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

Nora rolled her eyes, which made her hair fall back in her face.

"Not that anyone knows of," she replied, brushing the dyed-dark hair back. "Bodies were scorched beyond recognition. Supposedly a handful of kids our age lived there, along with the caretaker in an adjoining section. Might've been them, since no one saw them since.

That's what the website says, anyway. They marked it with a small stone cross in the middle of the clearing."

"So they memorialized a piece of land because some strangers' house burned down?" Thomas asked skeptically.

"Didn't anyone else in this car do research besides me?"

Thomas blinked, shamed. "Well..." he stalled.

Kirk cut in with a dull drone, as if reciting from memory: "The township always relied on nearby cities for everything: entertainment, major commerce, even public services like fire and police. The fire kicked the town into gear to develop localized services of their own, and the main town has grown ever since. The outer limits of the town are still rural, but now they have closer amenities."

Everyone looked at Kirk in stunned silence. Kirk glanced over at them. "What?" he said defensively. "I read stuff."

"Yeah," Thomas said, "but I thought you just skimmed Reddit and Facebook articles."

"And porn," Nora chimed in.

"But only the articles," Jaime added.

"Fuck you all," Kirk declared, and the car erupted with laughter.

"Well, growing population or not, this place is still on the outskirts," Thomas said, "so say goodbye to signs of civilization."

"Maybe they'll put up a memorial for us," Kirk laughed. "Here Lie Four Kids: died of boredom while driving."

"I don't know if the editorial staff covers funeral expenses," Nora mused.

They drove further, stopping for gas before turning off the paved road and completing the driving portion of the trip. The sun was starting to tumble down the sky when Kirk finally stopped the car.

"Alright everyone," Kirk proclaimed, killing the engine and throwing the car door open, "grab your shit and get walking."

"Remind me again why we're not parking there?" Jaime whined, slinging her camera over her shoulder.

"Because it's back in the woods," Kirk explained, "which is annoying. It's not too far of a walk, though."

Jaime pouted. "Would've been nice to know, so I could've worn the right shoes."

"It's photojournalism, Jaime, not a fashion show."

Jaime stuck her tongue out and grabbed her notebook.

Thomas stepped out of the car and stretched. He looked around, taking in the trees, the air, his companions...He frowned, looked around again, then ducked his head back into the car. Nora was still sitting in the car, fixated on her computer yet again. The sound of keys clicking filled her ears.

Tktkttktktkktktkktktk-"It'll still be there later," he reassured her. "We probably won't be gone more than half an hour."

Nora looked up. "Oh, right. Sorry. I'm coming." She put the laptop down, grabbed her things and hopped out of the car. "Do you think it'll be safe here without any of us nearby?"

"It's the middle of the woods," Thomas smiled. "Who's going to be around?"

• • • "I thought you said it wasn't too far of a walk," Nora said bitterly after the first mile.

"It shouldn't be too much more," Kirk speculated, consulting the print-out of the map. "Besides, like Tom said: probably won't be there more than half an hour anyway. There's not much too shoot."

"That's not reassuring."

"Just don't worry about it. We're probably almost there."

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9

"Says the guy who thought we were only going four or five minutes," Jaime teased.

"Keep walking," Kirk said dismissively.

The woods were starting to get thicker as they pushed onward. It was obvious that no one had lived out here since the fire, and based on the overgrowth of the path, it seemed that the memorial site wasn't often visited. So much for the "interest" part of "local history interest piece."

"Are we even going to have enough light to shoot?" Jaime asked.

The sun was already halfway down the sky.

"That's what the strobe is for," quipped Kirk.

Jaime narrowed her eyes at Kirk. "You don't have to sound so condescending."

"What? Camera 101, hun."

"Don't 'hun' me."

They bickered back and forth as they walked, and Nora laughed to herself. She wondered if there was any history between the two of them: she probably would have heard if they had been a couple, but they sure acted like one sometimes. Maybe they slept together.

There was a definite tension. She tuned them out as she pulled out her cigarettes and lit up.

Flikt. She took a draw. Ffft.

"You know..." Thomas started from behind her.

"Don't," Nora said with an exhale of smoke.

"I just don't get it. That thing's going to kill you some day."

"Has that line really ever worked on anyone in the history of ever?"

Thomas held up his hands defensively. "Alright," he grinned. "If you think raspy voices are sexy."

"I will out-sexy Kathleen Turner," she declared.

"In her earlier years I hope. You definitely have the leg-up now."

"What's the matter, can't handle the older lady?"

They laughed a bit, but Nora felt a little awkward. Were they flirting? Nora wasn't sure. She wasn't one to do that much, but she kind of liked it. She hadn't really thought about Thomas like that--it wasn't like they ever hung out outside of the paper, but...

You're overthinking it, Nora thought to herself. She quickened her pace to catch up with Kirk and Jaime, who were still going at each other.

"Down, alpha dogs," Nora said with an eye roll as she passed them by. They cut off, but Nora could still feel the air of discontent between them. They'll get over it, she thought, keeping up the pace.

She wanted to get to the site before sunset, otherwise the whole trip was for naught, even with their strobes. Just make it there, snap some pictures of the clearing, write some thoughts, and head home to an evening of nothing. The thrilling life of a boring student.

Up ahead was the sign marking the clearing. The letters were faded, but the engraving was still legible: IN MEMORY OF THE FOUR LIVES LOST IN THE FIRE, JUNE 17, 1971 She sighed with relief. "Finally." Nora passed the sign and moved through the trees into the clearing.

She stopped. "Wha?" Nora looked around, certain that she was in the wrong place. But the sign was right behind her: this was it.

But it couldn't be. It made no sense.

"Guys?" Nora called out to the rest of the group. "I think they might have built over the memorial."

There, in the clearing, was a house. A very large, very old-looking house, with large windows in the front and paint peeling and a roof in dire need of repair. It looked like it had been there for quite some time, to be in such condition, but that was impossible: the website didn't mention a house, only a stone cross. Nora stared at the house in confusion as the rest of the group joined her, matching expressions on their faces.

10

"What the hell...?" Thomas trailed off.

Nobody knew what to make of it. It seemed tremendous in the dimming light, towering over the four of them. It intimidated Nora: its presence was inexplicable, and that scared her. Without moving, she examined the stairs, the siding, the windows...did something move in there? It was getting harder to see, but she swore she saw something inside. Just shadow, probably. She started to say something, but Jaime spoke up first: "This doesn't make any sense. Why would they just build over it?"

"No... no, they wouldn't do that," Kirk said, scratching his head."

This.... this is..." he searched for a plausible solution. "This is some kind of new memorial. Like, a museum."

"A museum for a house fire that burned some anonymous people to dust and bone." Thomas was doubtful.

Kirk huffed. "Maybe they recreated the house. It looks old, right?

It's realism."

"That's some crazy realism."

"Why wasn't there anything about it online?" Nora questioned.

"The webmaster sucks," Kirk offered. "I don't know. But it's here, isn't it?"

The group paused to consider the possibility. Any reason seemed far-fetched, but the house was right in front of them, so there had to be some sort of reason for it.

"Well," Jaime said slowly. "we didn't come all this way to stand around. At least now there's more to shoot than grass and stone."

She hoisted her camera up and snapped a shot of the house front.

The strobe lit up the area. Kirk followed suit. They began to circle the house.

"Wait...you want to go IN there?" Nora asked. "What if someone lives there?"

"There's no way anyone lives here," Kirk insisted. "Besides, if they do, we'll tell them we're doing a story and work them into it." He continued to photograph the exterior.

"We didn't bring any release forms," Thomas noted.

"We'll write something up. Whatever. You guys want to just turn back and waste the day?"

"Alright," Thomas conceded, "let's go then." He adjusted his camera and approached the front steps with Kirk and Jaime. They stepped up.

The steps groaned. Crik. Criiiik..

They looked back at Nora, who hadn't moved. She shook her head.

"We didn't plan for this."

"Gotta roll with what you got," Kirk said, decisively gesturing forward. "Or you can wait with the car."

Nora glared at him. "Dick."

"That's what I thought," he replied. "In we go."

Nora took a deep breath and stepped up with the rest of them. The four moved to the door. Kirk knocked.

Thock!

Creeeaak.

The door hinged open. With looks cast between them, the four entered the house.

• • • The first thing that hit them was the smell: a mix of must, mildew, and staleness that made each of them recoil upon entry. Once the initial smell wore down, the group became aware of their surroundings.

The house was a wall-less, open space, stretching all the way to the roof. Stairs erupted from the center of the room, stretching upward into a corner to a run of hallway and rooms on the second level, divided only by a railing that exposed the entire floor to the rest of the house. The whole structure was on the verge of collapse: holes riddled the walls and floor, carpet was stripped in areas, dust fogged the air. It was a disaster zone.

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IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

"Wow," Nora remarked sarcastically. "What a magnificent recreation."

"This place is huge!" Jaime awed.

Thomas moved over next to Nora. "There was nothing about this online?" he confirmed.

Nora shook her head. "Nothing about it. Fire, four dead, memorial, town mourns and moves on. No house."

They continued to look around, but no one dared more from the front door. It was too surreal, too unsettling. The creaks and groans of the house only added to the tension.

FLASH. Kirk's strobe cut the tension and the darkness. "Well, we've got our work cut out for us. Let's get started." The others blinked hard, trying to clear their vision.

"Should we divvy up?" Thomas asked, surveying the scene. "This is a lot more area than we anticipated."

"Might as well," Kirk said as they all clicked on their flashlights. "I'm going upstairs."

"If this place looks this bad down here," Nora said, lifting her foot to investigate whatever she had just stepped in, "I can only imagine the upstairs. I'd rather not."

"It can't be that bad," Jaime said.

"Well, you two adventurers take the high road, and we'll explore down here."

Kirk gave a mock salute. "Adventure ho!" He turned to Jaime.

"Follow the leader."

Jaime raised an eyebrow, but followed along. Thomas and Nora fanned out on the main level. Room by room, Nora and Thomas explored the ground floor: dirty living room, dusty dining room, gross kitchen, disgusting half-baths, hallway after hallway. Nora's stomach lurched at the amount of mold and dirt and animal droppings that littered the floor. There is no way this is new, Nora thought to herself.

The two of them pushed open a door that led to a small wing of the house. Nora felt a wave of chills wash over her. We shouldn't be here, she thought to herself. They were completely alone in an isolated house in the middle of the woods, with night closing in fast.

And the noises were creeping her out tremendously. Creaks and groans and...were those footsteps? She shook it off--it had to be Kirk and Jaime; no one else was in this house. This is wrong, she thought.

Click-FLASH! Thomas' camera brought her back to reality. Nora raised her own camera and absently snapped the peeling paint on the walls.

Unnerving house notwithstanding, she was glad that Thomas was there. Made her feel a little safer. She was starting to warm up to the idea of flirting with him: he was a nice guy and she liked being around him. Or maybe it was the discomfort of the house that was making her seek some form of comfort. She didn't care. She decided to think about it later, continuing to idly snap pictures.

"Where's all the furniture?" Thomas finally asked.

"Maybe they're cleaning it for the exhibit," Nora replied wryly, digging through her pockets for her cigarettes.

"You're not buying this at all, are you?"

"Are you?" Cigarette to mouth. Lighter up. Flikt.

"Not really, but...well, come on: we came here to shoot a memorial. A house burned down, a house is here. Gotta be connected. They just replaced the cross with this."

"Forget the furniture, Thomas: where's the anything?" Long breath of smoke—fffft. Exhale. "Why is this whole house in disarray? If it's a museum, where are the plaques and the pamphlets and the people?

And more importantly: why didn't I read anything about it anywhere?"

Thomas shrugged helplessly. "It's the Internet? Maybe the sites told you wrong. Can't always trust everything online."

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

Nora feigned shock, smoke veiling her face. "Wikipedia would never lie to me."

Thomas chuckled. "Seriously, though: if it's not that, then what is it?"

Nora shook her head as she looked around. "I have no idea. But I don't like being here." She closed the door of the wing.

While Thomas and Nora mulled over their concerns downstairs, Jaime and Kirk were ascending the staircase to the upper level. Each stair groaned as they stepped.

Rrrrk.

Nnrrrrk.

"I'm telling you," Kirk said, "this has to be some kind of historical recreation." Jaime looked at him skeptically, so he continued: "Why else would it look this crappy? They obviously wanted it to look historic."

"That makes no sense at all."

"Do you have a better idea?"

Nrrrrrrk..

"No, but it just seems too old," Jaime insisted. "Someone would have maintained the place a little. And Nora didn't read about it anywhere."

Kirk waved his hand dismissively. "Nora probably just missed it.

Surely it—" KRAK! Kirk was cut off by a loud crack as the stair beneath him split apart.

He leapt back as the wood fell down below, clattering on the ground.

He clung to the wall and looked back at Jaime who stood stunned.

Neither of them said anything at first. Then Kirk shook himself off.

"See? Stairs that old, it has to have been here for a while." Jaime looked at him with a bewilderment that he ignored. "We're fine guys!" he called out into the house, in case Thomas or Nora heard the noise. "No worries!' Hearing no response, they continued their trek to the top.

The upper level forked in a small highway, one room down each end.

"Well, simple enough," Kirk commented, pointing with his flashlight. "You go left, I go right?"

"Might as well," Jaime sighed. "It's that or the three of us in one room."

"Three....?"

"You, me, and your ego."

"Goddammit...y'know what? Whatever," Kirk stumbled in exasperation. He pointed hard at the room to the left. "You go there.

I'll be in here." He walked down the other hallway, muttering under his breath.

"Oh, Kirk," Jaime mused quietly, pleased with herself. She entered her room.

Everything in here was just as disgusting as the rest of the house.

Jaime stomached her revulsion and snapped a picture of the room.

Click-FLASH! She tried to reimagine the whole thing in a "beautiful desolation" mindset, instead of a "gross and horrific" one. It was much more difficult than it sounded, but she took picture after picture, macro'd and angled and anything artistic that she could manage in order to distract her.

"This better get more than a quarter page," she muttered to herself as she yanked the closet door open. Her voice caught in her throat as she jumped back in surprise.

Thumpf!

Clothes tumbled to the floor with a muffled noise. Jaime gave an agitated groan. "I hate this place," she whined to no one.

But then she took another look at the clothes. They seemed to be the only clean things in this house. Some of them were even on hangers.

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11

"Weird," she said quietly, kneeling down to examine them. She sifted through the pile of mixed-gender clothing, all of it definitely far out of style. Some of it even looked like it could fit her. She lifted a blouse up to give it a look over.

She felt someone behind her.

A thick, dirty hand clapped over her mouth, muffling her before she had a chance to scream.

The blade went into her too fast to feel.

• • • Thomas paused and looked up. "Did you hear something?"

"I can't not hear something in this creaky old house," Nora said, continuing to write her notes. She'd been doing her best to tune them out. Not the safest of things, but it was better than jumping at every creak and whispering gust she'd heard. She was beyond creeped out, though she'd never admit it to Thomas.

Fortunately, he said it for her: "God, this place gives me the creeps."

"Why? It's just old, abandoned, and in the middle of nowhere."

He gave her a funny look. "Yeah, that's exactly why."

"We'll be fine, Tom," she said, reassuring herself in the process.

"I'm pretty sure the scariest thing out here might be a raccoon."

"If you insist."

"I do." She snapped one last photo. "Alright: we have officially photographed everything, everywhere."

"What about the basement?"

Nora masked her hesitancy and revulsion with a look of skepticism.

"Really? This house freaks you out and you want to go into the basement?"

Thomas chuckled. "Eh, I don't think anyone will notice or miss it."

He hung his camera around his neck. "Shall we wrap?"

"We shall."

Thomas tilted his head back and called out to the house. "Kirk!

Jaime! We're done! Let's head out!"

Upstairs, Kirk finished photographing his equally-disgusting room and stepped out into the hall to the sound of Thomas' voice.

"Fine by me," he muttered. He walked down the hallway toward Jaime's room, drumming on the wall as he approached.

Tapataptaptatapatap.

"Jaime, let's go," he said, but there was no response. He stopped.

"Jaime?"

He heard movement in the room, so he continued onward. "Jaime, you stuck or something?"

Tapataptaptatapatap.

"I'm done, we're wrapped, let's go."

Tapataptaptatapatap.

Still no response. Kirk reached the door frame and swung around into the room. "I said--" SLIK! The swing of the blade cut him off. Kirk clutched his neck as the blood poured through his fingers. He tried to scream, but only succeeded in gurgling. He dropped to a knee.

The large man at the end of the blade placed a hand over Kirk's mouth and stared down at him, watching as Kirk shuddered and buckled to the floor.

"Who...?" Kirk managed to gasp. But nothing more.

• • • "Jaime! Kirk! Hurry up, we're done down here!"

Nora and Thomas wandered the bottom floor aimlessly as they awaited their companions. Nora couldn't wait to leave: she was starting to fantasize about her room and bed, away from the smell of mold and stale and whatever other unrecognizable smells filled her nostril at the moment, bitter and sharp. She exhaled more smoke, hoping it'd mask it all. It didn't. They wandered back through the kitchen.

"Kirk!" Thomas called out again. "Jaime!" Nora shook her head.

12

"I swear to God, if they're going at it up there, I will end—" Skwiiik!

Nora's foot skidded on the kitchen floor. She stopped as Thomas continued on unnoticing. She steadied herself against the grimy wall with one hand as she lifted her leg up, trying to see the bottom of her shoe. She squinted to see, but it was too dark without her flashlight. "The fuck is this?" She tried to hold her notebook with her elbow while she flicked on her flashlight. She still couldn't quite make it out--there was too much dirt mixed in with it--but whatever it was it seemed to be leaking out from under the pantry door next to her.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she tugged on the doorknob.

Bodies spilled out of the pantry. Bloodied, battered bodies, piling up on the floor at Nora's feet. Nora let out a scream of pure terror as she clambered backward, trying to climb the way to get away from them. She slipped again and fell, her cigarette falling out of her mouth and landing with a wet sizzle on what she now knew to be a growing pool of blood.

Thomas barreled back into the kitchen only to slide to a stop and recoil. "Oh God..." He grabbed for the kitchen counter to steady himself at the sight.

Nora felt the bile creep up her throat. There were three of them, two guys and a girl, their bodies cut and chopped in a rough, grotesque fashion, head and body wounds aplenty. The girl was no older than Nora, though the lack of life in her face made it hard to tell. Her eyes were frozen open in shock, face divided down the middle by a bloody crevice. Nora could hardly bear to look at the two boys, hacked in horrific ways she couldn't begin to fathom. The blood was fresh--she didn't know how she knew, but she knew. "Oh God," she started yammering, unable to stop. "Oh God, oh God, oh God." She lunged up and grabbed Thomas' hand, dragging him toward the front door. "Let's go, please, please let's go."

Thomas dug his heels into the ground, stopping them at the staircase. "Nora, stop! We have to get the others!" He screamed upward. "Jaime! Kirk!"

Blinded by fear, Nora kept pulling for the door. Thomas yanked her back and grabbed her by her shoulders. Nora froze, face coated in tears and hair matted by blood.

"Nora," Thomas said tersely, his voice trembling with fear as he tried to keep himself together, "snap out of it. Jaime and Kirk are still up there."

Nora nodded shakily--she wasn't capable of anything else in that moment.

"Kirk!" Thomas bellowed, running up the stairs with Nora in tow.

"Jaime! Where are you?"

They reached the upper landing and hooked right to the first room.

Empty.

They rushed down the hall to the second room.

Kirk and Jaime lay on the floor, the carpet soaked with their blood.

Nora couldn't take it any longer, spewing onto the wall at the sight.

Kirk's neck was split in half, hinged backward in an ungodly manner.

Jaime lay crumpled on herself like a discarded rag doll.

Mortified, Thomas and Nora backed out of the room. "We need to get out of here," Thomas moaned. They turned to run.

Standing before them at the stairs was a large man, his clothes ratty and torn. His face was shrouded in the darkness, but they could see his arms splattered to the elbows in blood, his hand gripping a rusted machete that thrust its way into Thomas' belly at once. Nora looked on in horror as Thomas slumped, his stomach opening under the blade with a sickening tear. Her legs went limp as the wet sounds echoed the hall. Thomas looked back at her pitifully, collapsing at the man's feet.

Flumpth!

A weak moan escaped Nora's lips as she trembled, her feet frozen to the ground. The shadowy man raised his twisted face into the dim

TOUGH LIT. IX

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

light, eyes locked predatorily on her. Brandishing his machete, he advanced on her, feet squishing into the blood-soaked carpet.

Squik.

Squik.

He started to raise the blade.

Without thinking, Nora swung her flashlight hard, catching the man upside the head. The light flashed bright, igniting the room as the bulb burst. The man stumbled back in pain, and that was all the delay Nora needed to tear by him and down the stairs. The man swung his machete wildly at her, missing her narrowly. It buried into the wall with a loud TWUK! Nora half-tumbled down the long staircase as she bolted for the ground floor and dashed for the door.

Nora slammed into the front door, the speed of her fear carrying her too fast to slow down. Her hands fumbled around until they found the handle. She yanked, but the door wouldn't budge. She pulled harder to no avail. Nora spun, back pressed against the door-where was another way out? Her eyes darted around the room.

Nothing to break the windows with. The basement? No way in hell she was going down there. Suddenly, she remembered the auxiliary wing--maybe there was a way out. She'd have to go through the body-filled kitchen to get to it, but any way out was worth it. She made a run for it.

She crossed the kitchen, nearly slipping on the blood again. She reached for the door frame to right herself, but her hand instead landed on the shoulder of the man as he rounded the corner. Nora shrieked, backpedaling and spilling onto the floor into the pile of bodies. She flailed about, trying to get away as the man reared his arm back and swung his machete down.

THUK! The blade connected with one of the dead boy's bodies next to Nora, stagnant blood spraying up in the air. Nora crawled backwards as best as she could over the bodies. The man kept swinging, hacking away at the bodies, the gore splattering Nora's face red as he missed.

THUK! THUK! Frantically, Nora kicked forward, connecting with the man's knee.

He roared out in pain as he dropped. Nora kicked at him wildly, again and again, slamming her heel against his head and knocking him down. She scrambled out of the room and to her feet. The man was already starting to stagger up. No way around him: basement was the only option. It was a long way down, but surely the dark couldn't be scarier than up here. Smearing the blood from her face, she steadied herself and ran down the steps into the black.

• • • Nora's hand fumbled for a light switch, but she found none. She went for her flashlight, forgetting it was decommissioned from earlier; she cursed herself for it. Hands shaking, she lifted her camera and touched the shutter release, activating the focus assist light.

BREEEP! Her eyes were met with a cavernous basement, completely cluttered in stark opposite to the barren house above her. She scanned the room: walls and floor of cement with a wooden ceiling.

The basement was lined with cans and rags and bottles and buckets and wooden shelves, but no exit in sight. The room was tremendous, though, so Nora ran for the back, hoping to find a door or a window-something, anything to escape. She found nothing but concrete wall.

Her chest seized in horror: she'd run blindly into a dead-end, and the only way out was back up the narrow staircase, toward the killer.

KLUNK! The sound of a boot on the wooden stair. The killer wasn't waiting anymore. Nora panicked, looking around hysterically for a place to hide. She started to wheeze, but clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle it. Fucking cigarettes...

Wait. That's it. She fumbled through her pockets for her lighter, dropping it to the floor and cursing her shakes as she lunged for it.

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

KLUNK! KLUNK! He was taking his time, savoring the approach. That or he was still hurt from before. Nora didn't know and she didn't care--she'd take any delay she could. She could hear the metal of his machete scrape the wall on the way down. Grabbing her lighter, Nora scanned the shelves. Oil, petrol, WD-40, paint stripper, flammable, flammable, flammable. Gold mine. Nora slung the contents everywhere: on the shelves, on the piles of rags, on the spare planks of wood, on anything that could possibly burn. A stupid and desperate idea, but a desperate time that required it. She grabbed a handful of soaked rags and lit them, tossing them about.

KLUNK! KLUNK! Smoke started to fill the basement from all corners. Nora continued her fire-wielding, trying to garner as much smoke as possible before he reached the bottom. She covered her mouth with a clean rag as the flames spread and the smoke billowed. Perfect.

She kept low and slid along the wall toward the entrance. Her eyes were starting to sting, and this thin cloth wasn't going to keep the fumes from her lungs for long. Only one shot at this.

KLUNK! THUD! His feet hit the concrete floor. Nora couldn't see him through the fog, but she could feel his presence; he was close enough to touch, and she recoiled out of fear that she may be discovered prematurely.

He coughed and waved his hand to clear smoke from his face. The fire rose higher, licking the ceiling and finding holes and cracks to climb through. She knew she had to get out of there before she passed out, but he was still in the door frame, blocking any hope of exit. Time for another drastic measure.

With a shout, Nora swung her camera with all of her might. The body smacked against his head, lens cracking and glass spraying out in a rain of shards. He stumbled back, blinded by the glass. Nora heard the machete clatter on the floor and she bolted for the stairs.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck—" The man's hand shot out and grabbed her, jerking her back with a hard pull and throwing her back into the oven of a basement. Nora's head bounced off the floor and everything went even more hazy. She started to struggle to her feet, but he was already on her, his hands fumbling over her face and clasping around her throat. She saw his face through the haze, bloodstained and wrenched into a frenzy.

Nora thrashed and scratched and slapped and swung, but he just pressed down harder, his eyes growing wider in fury. Her hands searched wildly for anything to free herself, smacking empty concrete all around. Finally, her hands touched fire--a burning rag.

She shoved it in his face.

With an inhuman howl he flung himself away from her. Nora gasped for air, taking in a lungful of smoke. Hacking for breath, she flew for the stairs, clambering up them with her hands and feet two at a time.

The house was a towering inferno. Flames lined the walls and raced along the floor. Pieces of the house began to fall around her.

Nora staggered through the smoke and debris, hunting for the exit and praying it somehow wasn't locked anymore. She saw the door: it hung off of a hinge, the frame smoldering around it. Wrapping the cloth around her hand, she grabbled for the handle.

The killer was on her with a vicious roar. She screamed in horror as he grabbed her, his scorched face lit up by the fires. Her head cracked against the door. His hand seized her by the hair and jerked head back. She kicked at him to no avail. The machete was back in his hand. He raised it high over her head. Nora melted back in feeble terror, eyes fixated on the edge of the blade.

KRRRACK! The rafters overhead split from the heat, and the wood came crashing down. Nora gave a final kick with all of her might, falling away as the beams hit the ground. She couldn't see if he was still alive or not, but she didn't care. No time to waste. Spitting blood

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13

from her mouth, she sprang to her feet and careened through the front door as the ceiling caved.

• • • Nora fell onto the grass. It was night, cold and bitter. Tears and soot streaming her cheeks, she turned to face the burning carnage behind her.

But it wasn't there.

She blinked in confusion. The house wasn't there.

No structure, no fire, no sign of anything. Just a small stone cross in the middle of a grassy clearing in the woods. Nora wiped her face and looked again, certain it would reappear, but the lot was still empty. She started to shake and the tears flowed forward again.

Staggering to her feet, she approached the cross and touched it cautiously, feeling the frigid stone beneath her fingers. She didn't understand. What was going on? She felt so lonely in the woods.

Kirk...

Jaime...

Thomas...

She cried softly as she started out of the clearing, her head hung low. She was alive, but the trauma clung to her still. And the questions burned in her hot as the fires of the house. Where had they been? Why had they been chased, been killed? What the hell had happened?

Thud!

She stumbled. Lost in her thoughts, she'd run smack into the memorial sign. She reached up and used it to right herself, her eyes resting on the plaque.

Nora froze. "No..."

It couldn't be. No. The plaque had changed.

It looked as old as ever, faded engravings on bronze, but the words were not the same. Nora trembled as she read it over and over again, unable to believe it, refusing to believe it. But there it was, staring her in the face. She wiped the tears welling in her eyes, forcing herself to read it until it burned into her brain: IN MEMORY OF THE SEVEN LIVES LOST IN THE FIRE, JUNE 17, 1971 Zachary Vaudo is a writer, film-maker, and musician living in Marietta, Georgia. He enjoys long walks on the beach, comic books, and delving into the darker recesses of the human mind.

How Hard Can You Close Your Eyes?

by Bright Star

I thought of a time when if I blinked I might miss you staring at me.

I would instead hear my inner yearning and pleas for you.

Maybe I will keep my eyes open that way I won’t miss you.

I won’t miss your soft brown eyes caressing my face.

Or miss your hands touching mine.

Maybe if I close my eyes though I can imagine today and dream about tomorrow.

How hard can you close your eyes....?

Bright Star is from Havertown, PA and spent her childhood growing up in Ardmore. She is of Cherokee heritage and belongs to the Eagle Medicine Band of Cherokee Indians. In her spare time she enjoys volunteering, reading, spiritual pursuits, creating new products for her business (The Holistic Artisan) and spending time with her friends and family.

14

The Junk Yard Dog

by Harry Towne

Vincent Barbieri had not followed the group on this raw, blustery morning in March. Every Wednesday they would take the bus to go to the mall for shopping, the movies, or lunch in a fast food restaurant. Vinnie hated the mall, so he would usually walk the halfmile into the town center. The weather was a little threatening today but he accepted the risk of rain. He had intentionally forgotten his umbrella. And he liked being outside when it wasn’t a “beautiful day.” Besides, he could use the exercise.

The town used to be a thriving fishing village, but most of the local businesses had moved to the mall or disappeared. There was one survivor which Vinnie loved. It was a used book and record store called, “The Second Time ‘Round.” Vinnie didn’t have a record player, but he would go through the bins, find a record and ask the owner to play it for him, although he would never buy it. But, to make up for that, he would buy a book. As he walked into the shop, he heard a song from the distant past. He was transfixed. “I haven’t heard that song in thirty years – since I was a kid,” he said to no one in particular.

“The Dreadful Wind and the Rain, “said the owner, “by Gillian Welch. It’s sort of new, relatively speaking. Fits the weather report for today.”

“Yeah “ mumbled Vinnie.

When he was a teenager, he liked to listen to folk songs. They were usually songs of chronic heartbreak, enduring pain, and survival. A heartbreak song would feature a misunderstood lover who had been betrayed, a person Vinnie identified with, although he never really had had a girlfriend, but he could empathize. When he was 16, he liked the melody and the repetitive “Oh, the dreadful wind and the rain” line. But now, as he listened with older, tired ears, it was a song with the eternal theme of the corrosive, frequently fatal effects of smoldering jealousy which could turn people’s lives into a dismal climate of continuous wind and rain.

Vinnie and his mother had planned a surprise birthday celebration for his father. Vinnie had his Little League uniform on, for he was going to be the starting pitcher of today’s All-Star game. This announcement was going to be part of the birthday present. The other was a recording of Mario Lanza singing Aida. Vinnie’s father loved the majesty and tragedy of opera. Vinnie was in the dining area of the apartment. He was showing his mother where he had hidden the present when his father came storming through the door.

Steadying himself on the back of the couch, he unconsciously leaned over to pick up the baseball lying on the couch. He held it in the palm of his hand and caressed it. It felt good. He looked up to see Vinnie and his mother looking at him in startled silence.

“So, what are you two staring at?”

“It’s just that… you’re home early,” offered Vinnie’s mother.

“I live here. You may have noticed that. “ Uh-oh, thought Vinnie. I know where he’s been.

“And what are you two planning over there in the corner? You’re always whispering, keeping secrets. Have I interrupted something? Is my presence inconvenient? Maybe I should leave. I know when I’m not wanted.”

“It’s just that we have a surprise for you, Papa,” said Vinnie.

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve got a surprise for you,” said Papa as he hurled the ball at Vinnie. It crashed into the sideboard where the record was hidden.

Silence.

“W-W-Wild pitch,” stammered Vinnie, trying to defuse the situation.

His father slammed the door as he left.

One thing that Vinnie liked about “The Second Time ‘Round” was

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the little bell which would tinkle as the door opened or closed. The tinkle was quite a contrast to the wind which whistled in his ears as he stepped into the street. He slipped his copy of “The Pit and the Pendulum” into his suit coat pocket and pulled the collar up around his neck. A Nor’easter’s coming, he thought. He decided to take a short-cut down to the harbor, through an open field just below the Little League field up on the rise. He could hear the voices of kids playing a game, although he couldn’t see them. “Hey batter, batter, batter. Easy out. No hit”. That’s the nice thing about baseball, thought Vinnie. Some things never change. Then he heard the ping of a bat (well, some things change) and looked up to see a ball sail over the rise and come to rest in the weeds at his feet. He bent over and picked up the ball. He caressed it and brought it to his nose to smell the musky horsehide, and wrapped his fingers around the blood-red raised stitches, ready to throw a fast-ball.

Vinnie leaned-in for the sign, but he didn’t need a sign. This pitch was going to be a perfectly placed ninety-five mile an hour fast-ball.

He burned his stare into the ear of the batter, and the batter responded by leveling his bat at Vinnie’s head. O.K. you slimy bastard, you asked for it, thought Vinnie. Vinnie was sure that Grady was having an affair with his wife.

Grady and his “woman”, and Vinnie and his wife, had lived in the same apartment complex in Springfield. They were friends in the sense that they were teammates on the Springfield Giants baseball team, until three weeks ago when Grady was traded away. But they were entirely different types of people. Grady was the real life of the party – always kept them laughing with his quick wit. The girls loved him. But Vinnie was serious and low keyed. And faithful. He couldn’t say that about Grady, who messed around a lot. On Wednesday nights Vinnie had a part-time job as an assistant librarian at the public library. Frequently when he came home from work, he would find Grady coming out of Vinnie’s apartment with a baked goodie in his hands. “Sarah gave me a care package to get me through the night,” he would say. Grady’s woman couldn’t cook, so Grady would always get a lot of TLC from various wives. Single women would never fall for that line.

Vinnie was a relief pitcher, which meant that he had to get his blood boiling in just a few warm-up pitches. So, he would practice negative projections towards the opposing batters. Sometimes, however, he was never sure what was real and what was fabricated. Screwing my wife while I’m at work, you son-of-a-bitch. Well, take this in your ear, you bastard. He could hear the splat as the ball dug into Grady’s ear.

The umpire could hear the crunch of breaking bone as blood gushed onto the plate. “The ball just got away from me”, said Vinnie. ”It was slippery from the rain”, he said. Grady survived but never played again. And Vinnie never pitched again.

“Hey, mister, the ball?”

“Huhh?”

“The ball?”

“Oh, sure” Vinnie threw the ball to the 11 year old at the top of the rise. “Good throw “, said the kid, turning to go.

“Thanks. So….what’s the name of your team?”

“The Yankees” “Yeah? My team was the Giants” “Yeah “, said the kid, not lingering.

Vinnie turned to continue down the hill towards the harbor. He could now take a well-worn path that lead directly from the school to the harbor. But it was slippery, because being well worn also meant it had no grass on it, and that it was mainly rocks and slippery mud from the rain yesterday. And it was much steeper than the path Vinnie had blazed through the weeds. It was a path that young legs could easily negotiate, but Vinnie’s arthritic legs could not accommodate. As he descended, the speed of his body overtook the movement of his feet, so he had to run down the hill. He inevitably VOL 8, ISSUE 4

started slipping in the mud and came crashing against the chain link fence of a junk yard. He was leaning against the fence when he heard the snarl of a large dog as it threw itself against the fence. Stunned, Vinnie couldn’t get up, so crawled instead to the protection of a nearby tree. By now the rain was horizontal, stinging his face, so he hunkered up to the leeward side of the tree trunk, sitting on a large bolder at the base. It was an elm tree. Must be the last of the species, he thought. He could hear the junk yard dog (a pit bull, he noticed), throwing itself against the rusty fence. Even though the dog was behind the fence, Vinnie felt very anxious, so he moved on down the path to the start of the pier, leaving the pit bull throwing itself against the fence Looking out, he saw that most of the boats were moored out. Definitely a Nor’easter coming, he thought. He walked out on the pier fifty yards or so and leaned over the railing, watching the waves crashing on the rocks. There he saw a lobsterman’s hat hung up on a rock- Must have lost it while pulling traps..

Mario’s hat was all he could see as he peered over the gunnel, looking for Mario. Mario was the first mate on Vinnie’s lobster boat, “Aida”. Vinnie knew it was risky to go out on the sound to pull traps with a Nor’easter coming, but the Springfield Giants had a road trip coming up and he wouldn’t be back for eight days. It was do it now, or lose eight traps. And he had to up the ante for Mario to get him to come along. They were pulling the last line with Vinnie pulling and Mario driving.

“This is no good Vinnie. Let’s turn back.”

“Hell no! This is my boat. Keep driving.”

“I signed on for 50%, not my life” “Listen, scumbag, keep going!” shouted Vinnie as he stormed towards the wheel, grabbing a free wench handle as he went. He raised it above Mario’s head. “You keep going, or I’m going to smash that pretty little face!” The wind was howling at a fevered pitch, and, combined with the half-pint of scotch Vinnie had drunk, created a state of hysteria in Vinnie.

“Look, Vinnie, this is insane. “ “I’ll show you insane!” and he smashed Mario in the face with the heavy metal wench handle. Blood went everywhere. Mario let go of the wheel and the boat caught a wave broadside, lurched, and threw Mario overboard. By the time Vinnie threw a line out, there was nothing left but a cap.

As the boat went down, Vinnie grabbed a couple of floatation cushions. It was found smashed on the rocks and Vinnie on the beach a half-mile away. Mario was never found.

Oh, the dreadful wind and the rain.

The rain was coming down in sheets now – it was punishing. But Vinnie seemed to relish this and headed directly into the storm as if to say “Is that all you’ve got?” As he reached the beginning of the path to return to town he heard the snarl of the pit bull mixed in with the howling wind. That sounds too close. Vinnie was leaning in against the wind and could not withstand the force of the dog’s lunge, so he went down. He threw up his arms to stop the lunging dog .It’s face had been lacerated by the wire of the fence as it had forced its way through the small hole it had made. The putrid smell of the panting dog engulfed Vinnie as its massive jaws tore at Vinnie’s forearm. Vinnie heard the crack of bone before he felt the pain.

And the pit bull did that which it was bred to do.

Oh, the dreadful wind and the rain.

Harry Towne is 74 years old and has been living in Costa Rica where he taught English for 10 years, then retired 3 years ago. Harry was once active in community theater in Washington State and was a high school drama teacher for 12 years before moving overseas. Other than journals, “The Mission” is Harry’s first writing effort.

WWW.IDEAGEMS.COM

15

The Secret Keeper

by Barbara-Helene Smith

It was Friday afternoon and the Jefferson High School Class Reunion was about to begin. Brooke Crenshaw, the Committee Chair, arrived to finalize the arrangements. The tall, blond sauntered towards the hotel lobby mentally reviewing the scheduled activities, but what she didn’t know was that the most exciting event of the weekend wasn’t on her list.

A silver and black Harley roared past her. “Mickey O’Hara!” Brooke shouted, surprised the class troublemaker would come to the reunion. Mickey had smoked pot in the boy’s bathroom and hung out with his older brother’s biker friends. “I heard you joined the Marines after graduation,” Brooke said, striding towards him as he parked his bike.

“Yeah, three years of ass-kicking straightened me out. I’m a police officer now,” he responded with an impish grin. * * * Garth Garrison, former Captain of the high school golf team and a dedicated ladies’ man, watched his wife unpack their suitcases.

“Doreen, I’m leaving you after the reunion,” he announced without emotion.

“What?”

He drained his second glass of scotch. “I won’t be around after this weekend.”

Doreen stopped unpacking and looked at her husband. “You’re divorcing me?”

“Not exactly.”

“Who is she?” Doreen asked, her eyes blazing.

Garth evaded her accusatory stare by pouring another drink. “It’s not a woman.”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Honest, Doreen, you have to believe me,” Garth insisted.

“Then what is it? You don’t love me anymore?” Her voice choked and tears welled up in her eyes.

“It’s something I have to do. You won’t have to worry about money or anything.”

Doreen saw a hint of sadness reflected in Garth’s eyes and sat down next to him. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I can’t explain now. We better go or we’ll be late for the cocktail party.” * * * “Ladies and Gentlemen, as the Committee Chair, I am pleased to welcome you to the ten-year Jefferson High School Reunion,” Brooke spoke into the microphone. “We have a terrific weekend planned beginning with tonight’s cocktail party. Tomorrow starts with a golf tournament benefiting the Athletic Association. I thank all of you duffers who signed up and Garth for convincing the Country Club to donate the greens time. I’m sure we’re all looking forward to the homecoming parade on Saturday afternoon and the football game against our archrivals, Emerson High. There’ll be a dinner dance tomorrow evening in the Presidential Ballroom and a Sunday brunch will conclude the festivities. Let’s mingle, greet old friends and have a good time,” Brooke concluded.

“Wait a minute,” Garth shouted, stumbling to his feet. “I have one more announcement.”

Doreen grabbed his arm. “Garth, sit down before you fall.”

“Tomorrow night at the dinner dance,” Garth spoke undeterred, “I’m going to reveal a secret about a member of our class.” Silence fell over the room.

Doreen got up and slowly maneuvered her husband to his seat.

“You’re making a fool of yourself,” she declared, conscious of the multitude of eyes staring at them. * * * 16

Returning to her room, Laura telephoned her twin sister. “Linda, I’m worried. I think Garth’s secret might be about me.”

“What do you mean?” Linda asked.

“It was something that happened during our junior year. I never told anyone, not even you,” Laura responded.

“We told each other everything. What couldn’t you tell me?”

“Garth raped me,” Laura blurted out.

“What? When?”

“While we were decorating for the Prom. Most of the committee members had left to get ready for the dance. I volunteered to help finish decorating the gym. I went to the girl’s locker room to get more balloons and Garth followed me.” She stopped to take a breath. “He grabbed me and started kissing me. I tried to push him away, but he was too strong. There was no one around to hear my screams. He shoved me into a shower stall and raped me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” her sister asked.

“Garth threatened me. If I said anything, he would tell everyone I was a slut. This could destroy Parker. He’s up for a Vice President position at his brokerage firm. What am I going to do?”

“You’re not going to do anything. I’ll take care of it. That son of a bitch,” Linda fumed. “He rapes you and gets me pregnant a year later. Then he runs off with my best friend, leaving me to raise our son alone. I’ll kill the bastard!” Linda yelled and slammed down the phone. * * * Parker cornered Garth in the locker room before the golf tournament Saturday morning.

“What the hell are you trying to pull? Haven’t I paid you enough money?” Parker asked.

“Guess the Country Club wasn’t the best place to do insider trading,” Garth replied.

“I was only getting some advice from friends,” Parker countered.

“Who would think the Senior Class President was a sneaky, scheming low-life. Anything to get ahead, right Parker?”

“Garth, if this gets out it will ruin me. Laura’s a Prosecutor with the District Attorney’s Office. How would it look? What will it cost to keep you quiet?” * * * Stewart approached Garth as he left the restaurant. “We need to talk,” he declared.

“Not now, Stewart.”

“Now, Garth! I thought we had a deal. I kept my side of the bargain. I gave you the drugs. If you out me tonight, it’ll destroy my marriage.”

“Are you worried about your marriage or your career? Marrying the CEO’s daughter was a sure fire way to move from Director of Research to President of a prestigious pharmaceutical company,” Garth smiled, pushing Stewart to the side.

“That incident in the bathroom was a one-time thing. I was young. I never did anything like it again,” Stewart called out as Garth walked away. * * * Late Saturday afternoon, a figure approached a chair facing the fireplace. There he is without a care in the world. A book rested on the man’s chest. I must be careful not to wake him.

In one swift motion, a sharp knife plunged into the right side of the sleeping man’s neck. Blood seeped slowly onto the collar of his white shirt like red ink soaking into a parched blotter.

A piercing scream drew people returning from the football game into the lounge. Seeing the bloody, motionless body, the onlookers began shouting a chorus of questions.

“Okay folks, go back to your rooms,” Mickey O’Hara ordered, ushering everyone out of the lounge and closing the door. He greeted the first officer to arrive and surveyed the crime scene with the Coroner.

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IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

“Looks like a severed carotid artery, but no blood spatter or projectile,” the Coroner stated. “You know what that implies?”

Mickey nodded affirmatively. “Let’s keep this to ourselves until we have proof.” * * * The atmosphere in the Presidential Ballroom was solemn. Word had spread that Garth was dead.

Trying to lighten the mood, Brooke announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, our Reunion Committee put together a video with some memorable events from our four years at Jefferson High.”

Periodic bursts of laughter erupted as scenes from Frosh Days, Sadie Hawkins Dances, Junior-Senior Basketball, Volleyball and Softball Challenges and the Junior and Senior Proms flashed across the screen. Suddenly, the picture blurred and was replaced by static.

The audience gasped in unison when Garth’s face appeared.

“My fellow classmates,” he began. “I promised to reveal my secret tonight.” The ballroom grew deadly quiet. “I’m sure you know by now why I’m not with you.”

A communal “Ah” echoed across the room.

“Don’t be sad. I’ve led an interesting and exciting life. What you didn’t know was that in spite of my suave, debonair demeanor, I was bisexual.” Mumbling rumbled through the darkness. “I’ve kept it a secret, even from my family,” Garth continued. “Unfortunately, my past caught up with me. Several years ago, I learned I was HIVpositive. Thanks to Stewart’s pharmaceutical company, drugs worked for a while, but recently I was given less than six months to live. It’s not my style to be defeated, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I want to say ‘Goodbye’ to everyone.” The screen went blank and people looked at each other in disbelief.

A cell phone interrupted the silence. Mickey walked towards the door of the ballroom.

“The toxicology results are back,” the Coroner reported. “Like we suspected. A lethal level of digitalis simulating a heart attack.” * * * On Sunday morning, Mickey crossed the hotel lobby carrying his duffel bag.

“You’re leaving before the brunch?” a voice intercepted him.

“Aren’t you going to find out who stabbed Garth?”

“Why?” Mickey responded, looking the person directly in the eye.

“You can’t kill a dead man.”

Fiction writing is Barbara-Helene Smith’s fourth career. She has a Ph.D. degree in cell biology and has worked in academia, government and private industry. Her non-fiction writing was published in peer-reviewed scientific and professional journals. She discovered story telling after enrolling in a summer creative writing course. Fiction set her imagination free and she was hooked!

An avid fan of mysteries, she can usually guess the outcome long before the book or television show ends. Inspired by intrigue, she uses her experiences from previous careers to plot her own suspense stories. Barbara-Helene lives in Southern California with her husband and a rescue cat named Nikki. When not writing, she can be found hiking with friends in the nearby hills, puttering in her vegetable and flower gardens, working on genealogy or walking dogs as a volunteer at the local humane society.

Linda Kent — Master Artist! Green Thumb to DIE for! Painter of fine strange puppet faces! Inventor of Kerosene-powered Television! Queen of the Line Drawing! Writer of insane concepts! She bops back and forth between New York and Boston. Her artwork can be seen on Facebook and on www.uncelscam.org .

To My Mom

by Tammy Glatz It's too bad we never met, I often think as I watch the sun set.

Separated at birth we never had a beginning, You were young and alone. My hope for you is you're winning.

I wish I knew what it felt like to hold you so close, The things that I've been through, Mom, it’s just gross.

How different would it have been if they never took me away?

Would we have made it, or would we have gone astray?

Do you wonder about me? Does it eat you alive?

More times than not I wish I would die.

I'm lost without you here. This life is so hard.

Things might turn out right if I play the right cards.

I've made many mistakes that I can't undo.

Believe it or not, I made choices like you.

The more time goes by, the more I can see.

It isn't the world. My problems are me.

I never got so I could not give People’s lives were affected. With this I must live.

Stabilized

by Linda Kent

The ache in my chest is day in and day out, I harbor my insecurity, shame and doubt.

A man walks into a job interview, shakes hands with the Human Resources rep, who then gestures toward a chair on the opposite side of the table.

The man sits down and the rep leans back, looks at the man's resume and says, "Well, it appears your skill sets are well-matched to our needs... mmm... I see you've been in the field for quite a while."

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

"Yes," says the job-seeker, "Mainly in smaller outfits, which were actually more high pressure than some of the bigger operations."

The HR rep nods and says, "Hmm… excellent recommendations on all scores. I see you've done some hands-on work as well" The man smiles and says, "That's right. When things get hectic, it's all hands on deck."

"OK," says the rep, "I like the attitude. Frankly, it looks like you're the ideal candidate. We could use someone like you aboard right about now." Poising a pen over checklist, the rep says, "Just a few more questions -- just a formality really—have you ever been arrested?'"

"No".

"Have you ever been hospitalized for any mental disorder?"

"No." "Good. And finally, 'Are you currently using any prescribed psychoactive or mood-altering drugs?'"

"No." The pen stops jotting. "Did you say 'No'?"

"Yes. I am not."

The HR rep lays the pen down and rises abruptly, saying stiffly, "I'm afraid that's a deal-breaker. The company can't afford to hire anyone who hasn't been stabilized."

I think of you often. I wonder where you are.

Not having you here is a permanent scar.

It’s too bad we never met.

I often think as I watch the sun set.

Tammy Glatz is 30 years old and has an 8-year-old daughter, Asha, She is a college student interested in Anthropology and Nursing. She enjoys biking, music, animals, and sarcasm.

WWW.IDEAGEMS.COM 17

Marlo’s Big O

by Carl Tiktin She was going gray, no doubt about it. She yanked a strand of hair from her tousle of curls and gazed at it in the mirror of her dressing table. She had been trying to hide that now irrefutable sign of aging for quite some time although she had no problem in letting people know that she had made a definite incursion into her fifties. She had been proud, up to this point, that with her hair still jet-black and her youthful face and good figure she could be taken for a woman in her thirties. If you knew her then you would know that she had a 26year-old daughter who was just married and a 23 year-old son who just graduated college.

So why not a little gray already? I’m human, dammit. She’d always expected to age, hadn’t she? No, not really. The concept of aging was merely an intellectual event that happened to others and would certainly, someday in the distant future, happen to her but not quite yet---never quite yet. For an attractive woman who had enjoyed her looks the realization that she may have gone past her prime can hit hard and at that moment it did.

She had never considered herself beautiful but she certainly qualified as pretty, certainly that. Pretty was nice---it would do.

She’s still pretty isn’t she? She covered the gray with her hands and gazed in the mirror. So why were tears coming to her eyes? I’m being ridiculous!

She sat at her dressing table without looking at the mirror and thought about opening her secret “wine cellar” drawer and pouring herself a glass of wine. But Charles was due back this morning so she’d better not. He seemed to know when she had been secretly imbibing no matter what mouthwash she used or dark glasses she wore. He always had that look of his that would often send her into the bathroom for a quick cry.

It wasn’t that she was an alcoholic or anything, but whenever they discussed it—and he made sure they did around once a month at least—he claimed that both her speech and her thought process became even more sloppy than usual when she drank during the day and had more than one glass in the evening.

Charles did not think highly of her intellect. Oh, well, he didn’t marry me for my intellect, she thought. Tough on him.

A new thought hit her now. Sometimes she wished she could dump him! That was a shock. She never had a thought like that before. Was she blaming her husband for getting old? No, not old but older.

Both men in her life—her husband and her lover—had opposing views about women dying their hair. Her husband Charles believed in “au natural.” Her lover Burt, who subtly dyed his own hair, believed that everyone should enhance whatever he or she could without being ludicrous. Her lover would accept snow-white hair or bleached-orange hair, well not that certainly, but a reasonable dye job for sure. Lovers are always more forgiving than husbands.

They’re grateful for the bounty they receive without the obligations that fall on the husband’s shoulders.

Marlo really resented her husband for forcing her to take a lover and thereby complicate her life. Charles had gotten mean to her. He seemed to always be disparaging her, correcting her, nitpicking her on and on. He’d even begun to do it in front of other people. He just seemed to characterize her as a vain, mindless female more interested in her coiffure and her wardrobe than the world around her. His tastes were oh-so-much more superior to hers. Bach instead of the Beatles, Shakespeare instead of Danielle Steele, Wagner or at least Verdi instead of Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera.” Oh, he was still handsome enough, but as he was approaching sixty, he was getting a bit paunchy. And when it came to pleasing her in that most important part of marriage he was lethargic, thoughtful yes, but hardly stimulating. She had tried everything to reform him even 18

hinting about both of them entering into some kind of sex therapy, but he simply tried to do better the next time---all of which resulted in some labored huffing and puffing without any real excitement.

Was it all this subterfuge that was aging her? If she hadn’t taken on a lover, would her hair be turning gray at 53? Well of course---she couldn’t blame Charles for her turning gray. If she faced the truth about the entire situation—and she might as well do it now during these sad moments of introspection—neither man really satisfied her.

And now, finally, after nearly four decades of sexual activity, starting from, of all things, age 14 to her current age, 39 years of fairly continuous fucking, her strand of grey hair led her to the shocking, repressed fact that she had never had an orgasm in her entire life. She had actually never really enjoyed the act of sex all that much. What she did enjoy was the idea of sex, the seduction, the kisses, the touching, the adoration, the passion and love. She had been in love many times in her life, and she enjoyed making love to a man she loved, but the sexual pleasure, in itself, had never quite been there. She’d never really been wild, never loose, never out of control. She always had other things on her mind whenever the act was going on though she was quite adept at faking all the necessary moves and moans—faking so well that she’d never realized that she’d been faking herself.

Well, at least she had never faked an orgasm, as some women have. Give me that much for integrity.

Or was it really integrity? Damn, I’m being too introspective. She was making herself uncomfortable. But damn it while I’m at it, I might as well be at it—for real.

Okay, Marlo, why haven’t you ever faked? First thing that comes to mind. Quick.

Oh, my God! Afraid of getting caught! Any guy worth his salt knows that when a woman has a legit orgasm. There is some inner quaking.

You can’t fake that—you can be screaming for joy, you can be digging your nails in the guy’s back, biting his neck—all that but if your vagina doesn’t do a little quake you ain’t having an orgasm baby. No way. You could fool most guys but not the really smart ones. Burt, her lover for instance, very suave, very experienced. He would know. Should she bring that up the next time they’re together. No, he was quite happy the way things were going. Why unsettle him?

Would he even care? Him with the polished technique, the words of adoration that so easily fell from his lips. What would he care if she never was really satisfied? All that deception on her part. If she were caught there’d be a divorce. The children would know. It would break their hearts. They loved their father. They would hate her. My parents would find out. My father’s heart! My mother’s headaches.

My sister’s “shadenfreude”…. that bitch!

Would she then saunter into old age without ever having the absolutely wonderful thrill—(or so she’d been led to believe—of an earth shattering orgasm? The great release, the élan, the wondrous feeling of satisfaction and achievement. Would her last thought upon meeting her maker be one of deep regret? Would she feel cheated by life?

And what about the physical enhancements an orgasm supposedly brings: the sparkle in the eye, the glow of the skin, the springier step, the wetting of the vagina in anticipation of the great event—tThe really, really looking forward to the sexual episode rather than play acting so she could feel that she’s keeping up with her side of the sexual bargain?

It gave her no satisfaction to know that a shocking percentage of women never achieve orgasm. Would men put up for such a thing?

That was a ridiculous thought of course. Men need to have orgasms, the lucky bastards, in order to procreate. Female orgasms have nothing to do with procreation.

TOUGH LIT. IX

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

What was that all about? It simply was blatantly unfair. Men must have orgasms for the all-important act of procreation, but it’s irrelevant for women!? Sexual satisfaction and excitement is less important for us than it is for men? Actually it’s not important at all.

We can get pregnant even if raped. Marlo was not religious, but if she was, with this realization she would quit whatever religion she belonged to---immediately.

There she was as a married woman with a 39-year sexual history, ranging from the back of cars to some of the most luxurious suites in the best hotels of the world, providing satisfaction to men and boys for almost 40 years… and what did she have to show for it as far as sexual satisfaction was concerned?!

Nada. Well, to be fair not really nada. She couldn’t deny that she’d had fun. She had been worshipped, fawned upon, flattered and adored. Men had bought her jewels, taken her to the best restaurants and Broadways shows. She’d had a luxurious life so far.

Two wonderful children, a whole society of good and faithful friends, and she currently enjoyed good health now that her blood pressure was under control. Even Charles is kind of all right, as husbands go, she supposed.

The question that now faced her was simple yet very complex.

How can I achieve orgasm before it’s too late? By too late she meant before the onset of menopause. She was quite certain that if she hadn’t had an orgasm before menopause she wouldn’t be able to thereafter.

She supposed that she could read up on it. There’s probably tons of writing on the subject, but those kinds of books bored her and she suspected that none of that would do her any good anyway.

Now she certainly needed a glass of wine. She opened her “wine cellar” drawer. The first thing she saw startled her. Perched on top of the cork of the bottle of Bordeaux was a pale blue envelope with the flap face up. It was one of Charles’ envelopes. He had discovered her “wine cellar.” That bastard! Whatever was in that envelope would be his written castigation of her.

She took everything out of the drawer—the bottle, the glass and the light blue envelope—and put it on her dressing table. She poured wine into her glass. She felt ashamed getting caught like this. Charles often made her feel that way for even minor transgressions. This, to him, of course, was a major transgression. And that envelope… what was that all about? He usually just scolded her with his nasty little raised eyebrow and his vastly superior, biting vocabulary. He thought of himself as some modern-day Oscar Wilde or something. Bastard!

She took a healthy sip of wine, relaxed a bit, moved around the bedroom and tidied up here and there until she could resist no longer. She sat back down at the dressing table and opened that envelope and took out the note.

“Dear Marlo, “I write this note to you with deep regret. We have, especially at the onset, enjoyed a wonderful life together. We have raised two marvelous children who, armed with the solid values we have instilled in them, I’m sure will not be emotionally harmed by what is about to transpire.”

She put the note down on her lap. What the hell is he talking about? All kinds of crazy feelings whirled around inside of her: fear, anxiety and something else that she couldn’t quite fathom. She took a giant gulp of wine then continued.

“It has been apparent to both of us, I believe, certainly to me, that our marriage has been coming apart for quite some time. I assign neither of us blame. People grow in different ways over the years and sometimes they grow into incompatibility. I believe this has happened to us.”

He’s leaving me! He’s leaving me!

Marlo put the note down on her lap. She sat like a stone waiting for the tears to come. Oh, the disgrace of having a husband leave.

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

Oh, the embarrassment! Friends feeling sorry for you. Sleeping alone…Well, there’s Burt of course, and that new guy at the club, an Irishman named Colin with the most adorable brogue. I’ve never slept with an Irishman. I wonder what that would be like. They’re supposed to be so poetic.

“I have found someone else. We are very much in love and when our divorce becomes final, we intend to marry. I must report that your assessment of my amorous performance was certainly accurate as far as you were concerned. Frankly, your vanity and selfabsorption during our coital episodes were nothing short of ludicrous. Worse than that, they were boring. The final affront, your hinting that I would benefit from some sort of sex therapy was simply the height of audacity and blindness on your part. By the way, I bring my new amour to orgasm multiple times until she screams for mercy!”

Marlo’s hand rested on her upper thigh as she read the note. She felt a surge of joy, akin to the joy she felt when she gave birth to each of her children. A great burden was being lifted from her. She imagined Charles’ new girlfriend having orgasm after orgasm. Marlo pressed her legs together. She felt herself wetting.

She must be insane—her husband leaving her and…!!!???

She felt something happening inside her that had never happened before----a rushing tide from deep within that was surging, coursing, heaving. And yes, quaking. It could only be one thing! And there it was. It was happening.

Thank God… happening at last.

Carl Tiktin has published 2 novels, The Hourglass Man and Ron. His editor and publisher was Donald I. Fine, now deceased. Carl has had 2 plays done off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, NYTE, and The Direct Theatre.

The Land of In-Between

by Margie Kivel Click clacking grey horizon, 20 minute lapses released like train puffs along the pain track – reminders of a passage, but from where, and where to?

Face surfaces then sinks beneath one eyed scope pivoting the radius of sliding images searching for land.

Raveled threads dangle, little girl’s hand around balloon strings opens – cloud of separate wind words packaged in bright colors.

Maine author Margie Kivel’s background includes visual artist, Spiritualist minister, health food store owner, and teacher. From those paths she diverged into painting with words, and poetry was an important part of her journey through grief and loss. As she tries to hone her craft, so does she hone her life–they are intertwined. Each day is another opportunity to give and receive love.

WWW.IDEAGEMS.COM

19

Fear in the Dark

by Sabra Schirm

It should have felt like an omen, that sunset—a morbid streak of color, like a smear of blood across a wall. The light faded slowly through the tree tops, first in vivid reds and violent pinks, until all that was left were the blues and purples of swelling bruises. A truly glorious symphony of violence, that mountain sunset.

“It was nice seeing everyone again, wasn't it?” Eri's soft, lilting voice was jarring against the silent violence of the sanguine sunset, but was a welcome relief.

“Yeah, it was great. It's getting late, though....” Sabine had never been one for parties, in general, but this time she wasn't just making excuses. It was getting late, and before too long, the sun would set and the pitch black of night would settle over the mountain like a veil, swallowing everything, even the shadows.

“True. Let's say our good byes, then, and get going.” Sabine watched, silent and calm, as Eri flitted from one group of cheerful drunks to the next, smiling and laughing as she said her good-byes.

Sabine just stood back, a tight smile on her lips, only occasionally twitching her hand in a half-hearted wave when her incoherent friends shouted out slurred, happy good-byes. She felt a twinge of guilt at being so cold, but she really wanted to go. Now it was a relief when Eri flounced back towards her, a bright smile on her face, and keys in hand.

Before long, the two were warming their stiff, frozen hands in front of the car's air vents, waiting for the 1967 Mercedes-Benz's antiquated heaters to kick in. The car rumbled and vibrated, as if reluctant to be woken up, stubbornly shooting cold air at the already chilled girls. After nearly five minutes of shivering, the stubborn girls were rewarded for their patience by a blast of intense heat, strong enough to make all the windows steam over, leaving them slick to the touch. Sabine laughed, watching as the sweet-faced Eri colorfully cursed her “expensive piece of shit” under her breath.

The grumbling of the engine faded to a soothing, soporific purr in the background as Sabine watched the fog roll in, slithering and winding its way up the mountain, like a serpent made of water and smoke. Her heart pounded in her chest. The road home, difficult enough under the slowly falling veil of night-time, would be that much harder in the consuming, endless fog. Almost as if her fears had cursed her, Sabine watched as the pitch dark of the night grew heavy and thick with fog.

The car almost seemed to slither through the fog, slippery as the mist itself, the glare of the headlights cutting through the blinding gray like two knife blades. The road, so familiar in the light of day, felt infinitely more narrow and winding, seeming to go on forever.

Gone was the lazy, winding mountain pass, leaving behind a labyrinth with no beginning and no end--nothing before it, nothing beyond it, and a void of gray stretching on for eternity on either side.

“This... this isn't good. I mean, I know that we aren't technically lost, but I'm not sure if I know where we are in this fog, either.”

Sabine, whose sense of direction was useless in the dark and the fog, was not encouraged by this.

“Yeah. It's...it's like there's not even a road anymore, just... just the fog.” Eri's mouth twitched, as if she was torn between grimacing in agreement and telling Sabine to shut up and stop creeping her out.

Eri's hands shifted on the wheel and she bit her lip anxiously as Sabine, brow furrowed, peered intently out of the passenger window to try and see if she could pinpoint something—anything—familiar to reorient them. Out of the shadows and the fog, a black stretch of road emerged. It was familiar, but in the way that any road, any landmark, is familiar to those desperately lost and reaching out for something to guide their way. Eri giggled nervously, her lips twitching in a manic smile, as she turned down the road.

Neither was sure that this was really the way home, but they were ready to try anything, if it meant safety from the grasping fog.

The wheels crunched and rumbled over hard-packed dirt, pebbles bouncing lightly off the doors of the car, as the girls slowly drove up into a dead end road. An old house and stable, decaying with age and neglect, appeared like a ghost out of the endless dark.

White paint peeled from the outer walls like drying scabs, the windows gaping wounds, festering as the house seemed to groan and shudder in its long overdue death rattle. All was silence, heavy and complete, only the low, hissing sound of the heater and the panting breaths of the two girls breaking the eerie stillness.

Shadows did not exist in this place, only the black and the maddening fog, slipping and slithering menacingly over the rotting wood. In the dark and the fog, where everything was still, this place was a place of madness, a place where nightmares were born and slithered into the night to feast on unwary travelers. This was no longer a home or a haven. It was a place for the dead and dying, for old blood and decay.

Sabine's heart thudded in her chest, fast and shallow, like the heartbeat of a hummingbird, and she twitched as she heard Eri bite back a trembling, frightened moan.

Even as lost as they were, they would not brave this front door, not even to see if there was someone living there who could give them directions.

Sabine's voice caught in her throat for a moment, and all she could do was let out a breathy choke: “...go...” “...what?” Eri's voice was high and nervous, muffled by her teeth digging into her bottom lip.

“Go. Let's go, alright?” “...yeah. Yeah, let's...go.”

The rumble of the old engine became a roar as Eri violently swung the Mercedes into a U-turn. The car bounced and shook, creaking as it rumbled along faster than was probably wise on the old road in the black fog, but it was a relief to get away, even if all that awaited them was the abyss of the endless road. Finally, as the car reached the turnoff, the fog slowly began to slither away. The girls blinked, confused but relieved, as the fog bank began to slip away, as if it they had finally wrenched themselves from the grip of a demon's claws, now that they had escaped the clutches of the madness that waited them in the dark.

“Un-FUCKING-believable.” Eri's voice was amused and loud after the intense silence.

“What? What is it?”

That's when Sabine saw it: Fountaingrove Pkwy turn-off, 1 mile At last, after what seemed liked ages, they were almost home. * * * As the girls sighed in relief, the Darkness watched them, unseen, from its place in the back seat, and waited.

Sabra Schirm is a 28-year-old writer and student of Design at SMCC in South Portland. She was born in CA, but is a resident of Maine.

Do you have a story, poem, or article that suits our TOUGH LIT. theme?

If so, check out our submission guidelines at www.ideagems.com.

20

TOUGH LIT. IX

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

Joanna (Part 2)

by Regis F. Boyle

In Part 1 of this story featured in the TOUGH LIT VIII issue, we are introduced to Joanna, an unfortunate unwed teenaged mother in rural Missouri in the 1940s. She had been saved from being sold to a whoremaster by a farmer named Hugo. While helping Hugo on his farm, she meets a handsome, caring worker Michael… but Hugo does not approve.

In a few minutes Hugo returned, went into the living room, sank down in an overstuffed, well-worn chair, leaned his head back and hummed along with Tex-somebody-or-other whose nasal tones filled the house. Joanna appeared holding a tray with three uncapped bottles of beer. Drinking was nightly ritual for the tired, overworked farmer of the house.

"Thanks. What do you think of him?" He gulped down half of a bottle of beer.

"I guess he's okay. You said he worked, didn't you?"

Hugo gulped the other half of his beer and muttered, "Yeah, he did."

She walked back into the kitchen and sat at the table facing the sink, staring at the print. She tried to look deep into the picture, but it was a blur. It had always been a blur, she remembered. She turned her head toward where Michael had stood. She could see his face clearly, that look, that theft of feelings that had always been hers when in quiet moments standing in front of the old sink looking up, had lifted her from all of this to, God only knows where, but to somewhere else. What did he see? she wondered. She knew that she had never met a man like this one—this Michael.

Joanna sat quietly for an hour until the roar of Hugo's snoring interrupted her thoughts. She looked in at Hugo then quietly walked out onto the front porch for the first time in two years. She stared at the old bam where he was. She walked ever so slowly, but unhesitatingly towards the paint-worn double doors ahead. She had to.

She stood outside for a moment, listening to the silence. Even the three cows within were still tonight. She opened one of the creaking doors and stepped inside.

Michael was sitting against a cow stall, writing on a pad under a weak light from overhead. She stared at him in silence. He was intent upon what he was writing, and then he saw her.

"Hello," he spoke with no surprise in his voice. "Is your husband with you?" he asked as he rose to his feet, a gentleman.

"No," she said. "He's asleep in the living room. He does that every night. He works very hard."

"I know. I watched him working hard today. He's a good man," he paused. "You want to ask me something don't you? About the Corot?"

"The what?" She was confused.

"The painting. The Ville-d' Avray by Jean Camille Corot. The print in your kitchen."

"I never knew the name. You've seen it before?" There was excitement in her voice. "I knew when you looked at it you could tell me about it. The woman that painted it, Jeanne... what is her name?"

"A man, a Frenchman, Camille Corot. He died some sixty years ago.

He was an Impressionist painter." Michael was surprised by the reaction this lovely woman showed as a result of his matter of fact statements about the painting. In the semidarkness of the cow bam, her face was transfigured. It was the most beautiful face that he had ever seen.

"Will you write that down for me? I couldn't remember that." She reached for the pad that Michael had put down, and pushed it toward him.

"Please, write it for me. Oh, I'm sorry for carrying on like this, but...."

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

Michael began writing. He looked up and saw that she was smiling like a little girl about to open her birthday presents. "You changed the station to listen to classical music, didn't you, but forgot to change it back to hillbilly before he came in?"

"Yes, but it's not like you think," she replied.

"I know. It's to please him, isn't it?"

"Yes, he is such a good man. He works so hard and asks for so little," she said, looking back toward the door as if to acknowledge Hugo.

"Life is short," he replied. "Too short to let it pass without feeling the rush of ecstasy that a beautiful picture or music can give… and has given you, if only in snatches of time stolen... as if beauty has been forbidden to enjoy. Most people never experience the transfer of emotions from the artist to them. Don't let anyone keep you from that, not even your husband." Michael could see pain on her lovely face.

"When I was sixteen, he saved me from... well a terrible orphanage where I had been most of my life. I will always be grateful to him. But you are not interested in that.

Please tell me where you saw the picture."

Michael realized that she wanted to go back to a more pleasant subject. He was sorry he had preached to her, but he knew that she didn't understand the emotions she was experiencing.

"I helped a friend move out of an apartment," he replied. "He had a small copy of the print in a beautiful golden frame flecked with black specks. He threw it in the trash. I took it, more for the frame than anything. Years later I was walking through a museum and turned a comer and there in front of me was the much larger original. I fell in love with it and went back often to sit and stare at it.

It took me back in time… to a better time perhaps. When I saw your print I was elated to see an old friend. That's it."

"Tell me about it. The woman is a farmer like us, isn't she? Is it supposed to be blurred like that?" The questions that had been locked in her soul for years gushed out.

"Yes, she is a farmer, and yes, it is an impressionist painting that leaves the details out and shows you the artist's general impressions of the scene. It was a school of painting, mostly French. There were many great impressionist artists of that school, Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, to name a few. Have you seen any of their works?" Michael asked.

"No, would I like them too?" she asked, but somehow, she knew that she would.

"The library in town has books with many images of their paintings," he said.

"The next time you're in town, ask the librarian to show you books on Impressionist painters."

"I never go to town," she said quietly. Her voice had suddenly lost its enthusiasm.

She looked toward the bam door, as life, as it had been two hours ago was creeping back upon her.

Michael knew that he had made a suggestion that Joanna could not accomplish.

He thought for a moment and then said, "I'll send you some of their prints when I get back home... if you would like." His comment brought a disturbed look to her face.

"Home?" her voice had a note of alarm as she realized that this man was not what he had led them to believe. She had, however, sensed from the first time she heard his voice that he was somehow different from the other drifters who came to the farm.

"Home!" she repeated. "Then you are not a drifter, as you claim to be."

"No. Though I never said I was one, I am a drifter at heart," he replied. "I'm a writer who just got up one day and started to wander the country. My travels have given me inspiration for many new stories and success that I never dreamed of"

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21

"Will this be one of your stories? I mean about Hugo and me?" she asked with resentment in her voice.

"About you, yes."

"What could you say about me that anyone would want to read? I can't imagine..."

"Maybe about us. About our love... for Corot, that is. Things like this do not happen every day. That's what people want to read.

Meeting you has been..." His voice dropped off and they stood staring at each other.

"Now that you have your story," she asked quietly, fearing that she knew the answer.

Michael looked toward the bam door but didn't say anything. "You are leaving aren't you?" she said after a moment.

"Yes", he whispered.

"Why?" she asked.

He did not answer, but he knew the reason; this woman who he did not know existed two hours ago overwhelmed him emotionally.

This suddenness frightened him.

They stood a foot apart, staring at each other.

"Please stay. Please." Her voice quivered because she knew what she meant by the request. She could feel her body tremble. It was more than just talking to this man about her print and music, although it was the first exciting conversation she had ever had with a man, she felt a deeper reason for wanting this stranger to stay, but she could not admit it to herself. It was partly the dread of being lonely again and partly because looking at him and listening to him excited her. These thoughts made her bold enough to beg him to stay. "Stay one more day. Hugo said you were going to be here for two more days. Hugo will be going into town in the morning to take the vegetables to the market. “He doesn't come home till late. Maybe we can talk some more about my picture."

Michael suddenly realized that her hands were locked tightly on his arms, just above the wrist, as if to physically prevent him from leaving. She stared pleadingly into his eyes waiting for his response.

He almost said that he would stay for another day, but he knew it would mean a day, a week, and perhaps a lifetime. It would mean that he would want to take her from this place, show her the world she would love, the art, the fine music and expose her soul which had been locked in by a yearning that she had never understood. He would release in her all that she desired.

Desired, he thought. It was not what she desired, but what he desired. It would be to please her, just as she tried to please her husband Hugo. Could he do that to her, he wondered. This beautiful woman is married. Never in his entire life had he coveted another man's wife, until now.

Joanna read Michael's thought. She read her own feelings. "Go," she whispered.

He wanted to kiss her lovely face, but to his own surprise, he held out his hand. She shook it vigorously.

"That's a start," he said softly to her.

"Will you...did you mean it?"

"Send the prints? Yes, of course I will."

She put her arms around him and hugged him. He wanted to pull her body to his but again stopped himself. Joanna turned and ran from the bam. He went to the door and watched her hurry across the yard and into the house. He stood for several minutes and watched the farmhouse go dark. Michael picked up his notepad from where it had fallen and stared at the words written for her. Underneath he wrote, "The music was Beethoven's Violin Concerto." He tore off the sheet of paper and laid it in the middle of the floor, picked up his backpack and left the bam.

Joanna had run into the house, stopped, and gazed at the print.

She put her face in her hands and cried tears of happiness. She went 22

upstairs and stood at the bedroom window, looking out at Michael walking down the dirt driveway toward the highway.

Tomorrow, she thought, I'll ask Hugo to take me into town, to the library. I will.

"Goodnight, Michael," she whispered, "Goodbye."

As Michael walked from the yard and disappeared from view, he said aloud, "Goodnight, Joanna, but not Goodbye."

Joanna did not sleep at all that night. She wondered what had happened to her after Michael had stepped into the kitchen. She tried to remember his voice, the things he had said, and the way he had said them. Somehow his words sang like the fancy music that moved her in a way she did not understand. Nor did she understand many of the things that he told her, but she wanted to hear him say them again. For the first time in years, she thought of someone else besides her darling Libby.

Hugo had never talked to her about anything but the crops. He had no interest in their child. He had carved two toys and made a cradle because he enjoyed wood carving.

She had never heard him speak the baby's name. The only time he referred to "the child" as he called her, was when he asked what name he should carve on the grave marker.

He was a good provider but never a.. .and yet, this Michael had shown an interest in her print and her music. Why did she tell him to go, she asked herself, why? Her mind whispered many questions that she wished she had asked him.

As the sun began to rise that Saturday morning, Joanna found herself staring out of the front upstairs window at the bend in the driveway where she had seen Michael disappear. She shook her head and told herself that he was gone, he would forget about sending her pictures and that life, unfortunately, would go on as it had before last night.

Joanna went downstairs, looked out the back window at the place where Libby lay, and whispered, "Good morning, my darling." She then went to the stove and began preparing Hugo's breakfast.

"Mornin," Hugo mumbled as he came down the stairs, walked past Joanna and sat down at the table. She put a cup of coffee in front of him.

"Fix that Michael a good breakfast," he said. "He'll earn it today. I can tell about him. He doesn't need watching. I'm going to have him help me load the truck and then clean out the bam while I'm in town.

I'll tell him I don't need him after that. Make him a lunch to take with him and send him on his way."

"He's gone," Joanna said almost angrily.

"Gone?" he asked, surprised. She realized that Hugo would want to know how she knew that, but instead of asking, he only said, "Gone, huh! Well, he earned his keep for the night." He gulped his coffee, stuffed his breakfast into his mouth, refilled his coffee cup, rose and started out the door.

"Wait," Joanna blurted out. "I want to go with you. I can sit in the library while you do your business at the market."

Hugo stopped half way out the door. "In town? The library? What for? You know you can't read and besides, you know I stay in town late on market day. I can't let you hang around waiting for me all day and half the night. Besides, you always clean the house on Saturday.

No, stay home," he said, as he went out and slammed the screen door behind him.

Joanna had expected Hugo to be surprised that she would leave the house, but evidently, the only thought he had was of her waiting outside the whorehouse while he was inside laying on Ophelia.

She sat down at the table, dejected. She heard Hugo loading the truck, listened to it going down the driveway and then, silence. She stared down at her coffee cup and pictured herself, once more, locked in the house, but now, only leaving it to walk down the driveway each day to look into an empty mailbox. That thought

TOUGH LIT. IX

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

caused her to look up across the kitchen to the blurred print tacked above the sink.

"Village of...," she spoke aloud, "The Village of..."

"The Ville-d’Avray” a voice said from outside the screen door. Joanna, startled, clutched her mouth as she turned toward the door.

"Oh, My God. Oh, My God," she gasped as Michael opened the screen door. The two of them looked at each other for a long time, Michael because he was unsure of what to say, Joanna because she knew now, for sure, what had happened to her. Her thoughts, her feelings and desires belonged to this man that she barely knew. She did not know what name to give this feeling. She did not realize that she was now with the second person in her entire life that she loved.

"You came back," she said.

"Yes," he said, softly. "I had to. There were so many questions I wanted to ask you, but I didn't."

"Yes, yes," she said, smiling, "so many questions, so very many questions. I thought of a lot of them last night, but I can't remember what they were now. Come in, please."

"I don't even know your last name, Joanna," he said as he stepped inside.

"Neither do I, for sure," she laughed. "They gave me the name of Jones at the orphanage, but they gave that name to a lot of the children there.

Please sit down. I'll fix you some breakfast." Her heart was still pounding as she rose and went to the stove, more to conceal her excitement than to cook for him.

"Your husband told me to clean the bam and leave when I finished.

Maybe we could talk while I'm working out there," Michael said as he sat down.

"Another story, maybe?" she asked as she returned to the table with coffee, a plate of potatoes and eggs for him and toast for herself.

"I could write many stories about you already," he smiled as he spoke.

She laughed. They both ate in silence but this time looked at each other often. Once again, they rose and took their dishes to the sink, and as before, looked up at the print and then at each other.

"I've got a bam to clean," he said, turning toward the door. Will you come out when you're done in here?"

"Yes," she answered as she put their dishes in the sink. He walked to the door, turned and looked at her for a moment and then went out.

Joanna walked to the back window and stared out at the weedcovered grave for a moment. She turned toward the screen door and said out loud, "I'm done in here, NOW!" She walked out onto the porch, stood and looked at the fields, the road, the sky and lastly, at the barn.

Then, as she had done the night before walked to the place where HE was.

When she entered, Michael was sweeping the floor. He looked up and smiled. She sat on a bale of hay and watched him silently for a moment.

"What story will you write today, Michael?" She said his name so that she could hear her own voice saying it.

He stopped sweeping, thought for a moment, then said, "Tell me about the orphanage, and Hugo taking you out of it... Joanna." His voice became softer as he spoke her name. They had broken through the barrier of being strangers by speaking each other's name. Both enjoyed the sounds.

Joanna spoke quietly but there was pain in her voice. He sat on the floor next to his backpack, reached for his pad, hesitated, but did not pick it up.

"It was a long time ago," she said, as her eyes looked away from him.

"Fourteen years... I think. I grew up in an orphanage in Mississippi; as far back as I can remember.

The people that ran the place hired us out to cotton farmers to pick the scrub cotton that the machines left behind. They told the government people that we were all in school when we were really in the fields fillin' up sacks bigger than we were with the pickins'.

That's why I'm so ignorant when it comes to reading and the likes."

Michael sat enthralled as he listened to this beautiful woman relate her life.

"Go on," he said, "please."

"I wanted to learn to read so badly," she continued, "I even let old VOL 8, ISSUE 4

Toothless, the truck driver, feel my leg as he drove us from farm to farm if he would read the signs along the road and tell me what the letters were. If he reached his hand up too far," she made an imaginary mark with her hand, about halfway up her thigh, "I'd have to squeeze his fingers until he yelled in pain and went back to behavin' himself." She laughed as she thought of it.

Michael laughed too. "And when does Hugo come into the story?" he asked.

"Well, when I got to be about sixteen, they sent me to Mother Mary's Home for Girls in Arkansas to be "’dopted out" as they called it. When I got there, one of the other girls there told me that the place in Mississippi had sold me to a whoremaster for a lot of money. He was comin' to pick me up the next day there in Arkansas and the place in Mississippi would tell the government people that I had been taken in by some nice people to be raised."

Michael shook his head. He was hearing an epic story of degradation and abuse; one that he could never retell as well as she had recited it now. She, he thought, should be the writer in this bam rather than him.

"Anyhow", she continued, "That night I crawled out the window and walked most of the night until I came to a fillin' station. I sneaked into the back of a small truck and hid between some crates of com. The driver was Hugo and he drove off, not knowing I was in the back until he got home here in Missouri. He let me stay here after I told him I would work twelve hours a day in the fields. In return, he fed me and let me stay in the bam at first, but after a while he brought me into the house."

"Were you married to him?" Michael asked.

"No," she said, "that cost money, Hugo told me. I let him come into my room at night and lay on me for a few minutes now and then," she said without emotion.

"And the orphanage people?"

"After a while, old Toothless showed up at the house and told Hugo he was going to take me back to Arkansas. Hugo beat him senseless, threw him in the truck, and drove off. He came back a couple of hours later and told me that the man wouldn't bother them again. I figured that Hugo had killed him, but he hadn't. He said that Toothless woke up just after they crossed into Arkansas before he beat on him some more. Toothless told him that the lady that first brought me to the orphanage said that my name was Joanna Ryan. So I stayed with Hugo for the past fourteen years."

"Do you suppose that Hugo might have killed the man to protect the woman that he loved?" He asked.

"Loved? Oh no, while he was smashing Toothless' face, he yelled at him that nobody was going to take the best goddamned farmhand he ever had away from him.

That was Hugo," she said with a grin. "Besides the next morning he rolled Toothless' old truck down to the drainage ditch along the road to town and pushed it into the water. Two days later I saw a man with his head all bandaged up trying to pull the old truck back radio one day and I must have turned the knob and heard a song with no words. It was soft, almost quiet music. Even though there was a lot of scratchy noises, the music made me feel very sad and very lonely. I almost cried while I listened to it. I couldn't hear what the song's name was, but I think the radio man said it was written by a man who was a barber." Michael looked surprised, but remained silent. "I saw what the number on the knob was and listened to it every chance I got while Hugo was in the fields. Sometimes the music made me feel funny, you know, not just inside but my skin felt funny too. I don't know why, but just like my picture, the music seems like it is mine. Why does it do that to me? Do you know? Does it do that to you too?"

"Oh, Yes," Michael said without thinking about it. "The music that you heard was written by a man named Samuel Barber. He called it Adagio for Strings. When I first heard it two years ago, I did cry. It is the most beautiful, yet, saddest piece of music I ever heard. We seem to love the same things. I guess it does that to us because it is so beautiful. What your picture does to your eyes, the music does to your heart."

"I have always wondered why it made me feel," she paused, searching for the words to describe what she felt, "sometimes lonely, sometimes happy or sad. I asked Hugo once why he liked his music. He said it was

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what he heard from the time he was born. It was all he ever heard and all he ever liked. I never heard that fancy music until that day I dusted the radio. I never understood...." she shook her head.

"Maybe Joanna, your mother, in a time that you can't remember surrounded you with class... fancy music and beautiful art. Maybe she was a musician or an artist.

Perhaps, Joanna Ryan, your appreciation of beauty came to you through your mother. As he spoke, Michael saw a realization come over Joanna, as she nodded.

"Maybe," she said. "Everyday... I lifted Libby up so she could see our print.

Every time I could, I sat her near the radio and talked to her about the beautiful music. I wanted her to have those things as I did. Every time..."

Michael watched her as she spoke. She had closed her eyes as she talked about her child. Have I given her answers that she understood? he wondered. What now? he asked himself. He had evaded the question when she had asked it, but he knew the time was rapidly nearing when it must be answered. He could not just get up and leave, and yet he could not just stay. He had no right to ask her to leave with him. She probably wouldn't leave anyhow, he thought.

"Do you have children, Michael? Or a wife?" she asked.

"No, I never married. I almost did once but it didn't work out. Maybe someday...." his voice dropped off I wonder if it would work out for us, she thought. Probably not, we are so different, so very different.

"I'm sorry," she said. Although, she didn't know why, she felt glad rather than sorry.

"It was better for both of us that it didn't happen," he said. "She was a lovely, sophisticated woman who knew more about art and music than I will ever know, but the only thing she did with her knowledge was to dispense it to the cocktail party crowd. She didn't know how to enjoy that which she knew so much about."

"You said 'she was a lovely woman', did she pass away?" Joanna asked him.

"Oh no, she just passed out of my life. She could ruin a beautiful artwork for me by telling me how the artist balanced objects, shadows and lines in a painting rather than how it made her feel. We were in a New York museum five years ago. I was enjoying a beautiful Monet when she started dissecting it for me. People around us gathered to listen to her. After a while, I just left. I doubt if she even realized that I was gone. I never saw her after that. About a year later I read in the paper that she had married. She married rather well, as they say in the cocktail circuit."

"Do you regret it?" she asked.

"No. I felt bad that neither a lovely painting nor a beautiful concerto ever made her feel, 'sometimes lonely, sometimes happy or sad. I've never told anyone about this part of my life before." Nor had he ever told anyone about his loneliness, his yearning to have someone with whom he could share the enjoyment of the beautiful things in life.

Someone he could communicate with who would be more than just a wife, but who would also be a soul mate.

She remembered what he had said to her the night before about not letting anyone keep you from enjoying beauty. She didn't understand it then, but now she realized what he was saying.

They both sat quietly. Here on one side of the bam was Michael, his mind vacillating between jumping up, shaking her hand and quickly leaving or devising a way to see her every day while her.. .Hugo worked in the fields. A third option seemed to him to be out of reach. On the other side of the bam, sat Joanna whose mind seemed contented, having been given some answers to questions that haunted her for so long. But yet, there was a new question, far more meaningful than the others that she wanted to, but was afraid to ask.

Hours passed as they talked. She wanted to know all about him. He spoke about his writing, his success, his travels, visits to Europe, the museums and the concert halls, all so familiar to him. She listened in awe as he described a world she had never imagined existed. Michael relished in the thought of taking her to the places he was describing, seeing her bursting with excitement and joy, over and over, as she had the night before as he told her about her print. First, he would take her to see 24

her... their painting. He wanted to tell her of this idea and ask her to leave with him tonight, but was afraid that she would say no and ask him to leave at once.

"Maybe Hugo could use my help for a few more...," Michael started to say, changing the subject that had been on his mind, when he suddenly stopped talking. The noise of a truck outside the bam, along with the realization that it was nighttime, alarmed him. He looked across the bam at Joanna, who was smiling at him.

"Is that Hugo?" he asked.

"Yes," she said calmly, "Ophelia must have kicked him out early tonight." She was amused at the thought.

Michael did not understand Joanna's comment, but when he heard the door to the house slam, he relaxed.

"Should I leave?" he asked.

"Yes, Michael, will you take me with you?" she asked without hesitating.

Although he did not answer immediately, he knew that he wanted to; he knew that he would. His heart pounded with excitement. He did not care if she wanted to go with him because she wanted to see the world or just to get the hell out of this place, or if it was because she loved him as he did her. .

"Will you stay with me forever?" he said in a whisper.

"Forever," she nodded as she spoke the word.

"My car is in the town. I'll walk in and get it and come back for you," Michael said as he rose to his feet.

"You said forever, Michael. I want that to start now," she said.

Michael smiled. "It's more than six miles, that's a long way."

"I will crawl that far to stay with you," she said and meant it.

"I'm glad. I don't want to leave you… ever. Get all your things and we'll get started," he said.

"What I have on now ARE all my things. I'm going in for a moment to say goodbye," she spoke as she rose to her feet.

"Is that wise?" he asked, but she was already walking toward the door.

"Okay, I'll wait for you outside," he said as he picked up his pad and his backpack.

Joanna walked from the bam, slowly this time, across the yard and into the house.

She walked directly to the sink, reached up and took the blurry print and put it inside her dress, resting on her breast. She looked at the comer of the kitchen where Libby had often played, walked out the door, down the steps but, instead of turning toward the bam, she walked the other way. A moment later she stood in front of the weed-covered grave.

She knelt down and reached her right arm through the wood pickets of the fence and touched the dirt mound under the weeds.

"Goodbye my Libby, you will always be in my heart, right here," she touched her chest over her heart, "along with our picture. Never forget your momma-momma. You will be with me… wherever I am."

Joanna walked back to the bam. Michael was sitting outside. He had watched her come around the side of the house and knew to whom she had said goodbye. He reached his hand out to her. She grasped it and held it ever so tightly as they walked down the driveway.

"What will Hugo do when he finds that you are gone?" Michael asked.

She smiled at the question. She knew the answer.

"Oh, he'll go and find another woman who he'll like just as much as he did the first one," she said. "That is Hugo!"

This time, the two of them rounded the bend in the driveway and disappeared from view.

Two years later, Joanna, a novel by Michael Monaghan and Joanna Ryan Monaghan was on everybody's bestseller list. The book was dedicated simply, “To Libby.”

Regis F. Boyle is 78 years old and from Toledo, Ohio. “Joanna” is his first serious attempt at writing fiction. Regis graduated from Toledo University after serving in the U.S. Army in the early 1950s. He later served as a police officer with the Toledo department for 9 years. Leaving as a Detective Sergeant, he then went on to work as an FBI agent for 20 years, serving in 4 different states before retiring and taking up contract work with the CIA for another 15 years. Regis is now retired.

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IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

Gavaldene: The Cruel Regime

by Bret Raushenbush Chapter 1 Gaveldown at Gavaldene On Friday afternoons, the Ladies Finishing School at Gavaldene would gather for assembly. The ritual highlight of these gatherings was the Gaveldown, in which three miscreant students were brought forward, sentenced, and punished before the whole school. One odd aspect of this ritual was that the student body, faculty, and staff voted on which implement— hand, paddle, or cane— would be used on the bare bottoms of the unfortunate ones. Their alleged transgressions ranged from low grades to talking back to whatever the authorities wanted to punish them for. A written warning listing twenty-five no-nos, known informally as “Warden’s Whipping Points,” was handed out to new arrivals. But they were also told that the list was incomplete. In fact it was ever expanding, like empires and galaxies.

Headmistress Barbara Coat-Hanger limped to the podium on this particular March Friday and introduced the guest speaker, Miss Neverditch. This well-coiffed and expensively-attired worthy, a familiar sight on several corporate boards, spoke on the hoary theme of the virtuous woman, a quiet authoritative figure who held the reins to the base instincts of men. The students had heard it all before, many times, and soon tuned her out. When the homily was finally done there was polite applause. Her hand was shaken manically by the head, and she was escorted out the door, holding the illusion that she had been the main attraction.

But that would come next. The microphone was moved from the podium to a long trestle table. Civics teacher C. Etbin came up on stage and took her seat there. She carried a wooden gavel which she rapped smartly on the table. The murmuring audience grew quiet.

“Now,” she said into her mike. “Bring out the naughty girls!”

A trio of sullen young ladies—3 of 99 souls in the limbo/wake of high school—were paraded through the hall and onto the stage.

Instead of the usual beige and black uniforms they were wearing special scarlet robes that clung to their naked bodies. These punishment robes were easily pushed up to reveal their bottoms while at the same time covering their fronts.

“You first, Julia,” commanded the Civics teacher.

“A blond Level One with a well-developed figure walked across the stage and stood in front of the table, head down and five feet to the right of her judge. “You failed your mid-term Algebra exam,” said that one. “Accordingly, you must be punished. I sentence you to a dozen strokes.”

She turned back to the audience. “Now, what shall we use on Julia’s bottom? Let’s see a show of hands. Will it be a handspanking?” A handful of the students and faculty raised their hands.

“How about the paddle?” A large number of hands shot up. “Finally, the cane?” A smaller number of hands were raised, which included that of headmistress Barbara herself. C. Etbin hesitated for a moment, then declared “The paddle it is.”

Julia was bent forward over the table. A pair of prefects quickly worked the robe up to bare her bottom. An English teacher, Miss Fleming, came up to the stage and selected a paddle from an assortment of implements in a basket at the foot of the table. She took her time getting the feel of it and adjusting her sleeve while Julia waited in dread. Finally the teacher was in position. She brought the paddle down firmly on Julia’s behind.

Bravely, Julia did not cry out, at first, but instinctively shifted.

A second stroke caught her bottom, then a third, and a fourth.

“Owww!” she cried. She then tried to shield her rear with her right hand, but the prefects came and held her arms in place. Miss VOL 8, ISSUE 4

Fleming then aimed the paddle at Julia’s blushing cheeks again. In the course of these strokes the teacher’s own fleshy hindquarters waggled prominently beneath her blue linen skirt. A sixth smack of the paddle was applied which set Julia’s bottom wriggling.

At this mid-way point the punishment ritual required that student and teacher move to the other side of the table, facing the assembly.

The facial contortions and tears that always accompanied this second half were intended to impress upon the watching girls the pain that they would suffer if they were bad. So it was with Julia, whose sobs and grimaces and writhing grew more dramatic with each successive whack of the paddle. Finally it was over. Her robe was pulled down over her tender rear, and she was taken from the hall.

“Next up,” said Miss Etbin, “Phyllida Runkle.” A very small senior girl walked forward. She was known to her classmates as “Mouse.” A mild buzz swept the student body due partly to her size but also to the fact that she was a generous young woman well-liked by her classmates. What they didn’t know was that headmistress Barbara and several of the faculty had it in for her. She possessed one of the highest IQs in the school but was content to get Bs in her studies.

Barbara and others felt she was lazy. In addition, her parents were nobodies, as they saw it. Her father was some sort of freelance writer while her mother wore blue jeans and was rumored to be an atheist. They weren’t the sort of people one met socially.

C. Etbin sought to quell the whispering. “Quiet!” She glared out at the crowd. “Phyllida, you were observed picking your nose in the hallway. That is a most unladylike act which cannot be tolerated at a finishing school of our standing.” She banged down her gavel.

“Accordingly, I sentence you to a dozen.”

The show of hands was called for, and to the dismay of C. Etbin and Barbara and a few others, the students voted for a hand-spanking.

While Barbara scowled, Mouse was bent forward over the table and her pert little bottom bared. Again it was Miss Fleming who did the honors, and this time her own fuller behind, stretching the fabric of her skirt, drew the attention of most of the onlookers. When they changed sides for the second six spanks, Miss Fleming let the fingers of her hand splay outward to lessen the impact. Mouse let out a couple of “Ow’s” and bit her lip, but did not cry. She was speedily hurried off-stage.

The third girl was a very different physical type. She was tall and large-boned with an outsized behind. She was a bossy, bullying girl who was particularly disliked by the underclassers whom she would often report to the authorities or spank by herself with a ruler. Such student-on-student spankings were condoned— even encouraged— because the headmistress thought that they preserved the punishment hierarchy. But Lindsay had fallen out of favor with Barbara when a cell phone had been found in her dorm bed. That one infraction didn’t land her in assembly, but a second one— cheating on a history exam—did.

“Lindsay,” said C. Etbin, in a tremulous voice, “we viewed you as a top girl, but you have let us down by cheating on a test. Accordingly, I must sentence you to eighteen strokes.”

The audience stirred as Lindsay assumed the position and her robe was lifted, baring a wide round ass with an ample under-curve. She remained in position as the votes were taken. Overwhelmingly, the popular choice was the cane.

The student body waited in eager anticipation as the school disciplinarian, James L. Bootie, took the stage. His nickname was “Whipper,” not only because he did all the canings at assembly but also because he was active in administering private discipline. His stern lessons were applied to the bottoms of newer and younger faculty, as well as the students. A boyishly handsome man, though on the far side of 50, he was in excellent shape.

He selected a mid-size cane from the basket which he swished loudly in the air four or five times. Lesley tensed while the younger

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girls she had tormented leaned forward in their seats to see her fat ass get its comeuppance.

Whipper let the first cut rip. She gasped loudly and tried to stand up. The two prefects quickly took hold of her arms and bent her down to receive the remaining strokes. A second whistled in, then a third. “Omigod!” she shouted. “Owww!” He then aimed a stroke at her copious under-curve. “Yeowww! Stop! Stop!” she yelled.

But he was just warming to the task at hand. He turned to the crown of her buttocks, its fullest protrusion. Swish!

“Omigod! Oww! Please!” Lesley tried to stand again. Part of the robe fell over her striped bottom but was soon secured. A sixth blow fell. Yelling, she began to rotate her bottom. This did not deter him from lashing it again and again. As her screams grew louder, he stood closer. He delivered a stroke straight down on her fleshy out-thrust cheeks. This “skimming” blow elicited her loudest shriek yet. The prefects struggled to take a screaming, hopping Lindsay to the other side of the table. Whipper had to lend a hand, the one not holding the cane.

For Lindsay, the remainder of her punishment seemed like an eternity in hell. The assembled students, faculty, and special friends of Barbara Coat-Hanger listened to the ever-rising volume of Lindsay’s shrieks and pleas. They watched, some with secret satisfaction, as the expression on her face changed from concern to panic. Whipper did not spare her stripped and sacrificed behind. He dealt her the full allotment of eighteen, until she lay forward on the table, tears streaming down her face. He noted with approval the grid of crisscrossing lines that now marked her rear, its tomato-red color, and the raddled under-curve that would worry her for the next few days. But he was also pleased that no blood had been drawn. In a move unusual for the Gaveldown he walked a sluggish, smarting Lindsay to the front of the table and displayed her punished backside to the assembly— like a work of art. Initially they stared in fascination at it. Then they began to applaud. The applause mounted until Whipper himself signaled for them to stop. Poor Lindsay was too preoccupied with the raging pain in her big buttocks to turn and see which of her classmates were clapping. Her scarlet robe, which nearly matched the color of her martyred booty, was lowered over it.

Her fiery skin pulsed pain beneath the tightly clinging cloth. Miss Fleming led her away to the infirmary.

Headmistress Barbara then came up on stage with her heavy cumbersome limp. She grabbed the microphone. “Let that be a lesson to you would-be cheaters and slackers. We punish. And while we may be strict at times—to uphold our high standards—here at Gavaldene, we do it the democratic way!” With a thin smile she added, “Dismissed.”

Still buzzing, the students wandered out of the assembly hall. Some went to the gym to suit up for field hockey. A big match was coming up with their arch-rival, Miss Pitt’s Academy. Others headed back to their dorms, or took a walk around the grounds. Gavaldene was constructed in a way that allowed few shadows, or places to hide. th The buildings tended to be flat and angular, in the 20 -Century utilitarian mode. The lone exception was the chapel, a throwback in brick and stone to the 19th Century and a big selling point for the school. Trees were sparse, but a large oak stood near the main entrance to the school. The chapel and the oak appeared on the school stationery and on Christmas postcards. A few flower beds surrounded the main building, but Barbara didn’t want a gardener.

She had heard about “Lady Chatterly’s Lover,” so most of the flowers were paper or rubber.

On this late-winter day, the sun had blazed out and was starting to set. Short days were followed by chilly evenings. James “Whipper” Bootie was walking to his digs in the annex when he nearly bumped into Miss Fleming leaving the infirmary. “Excuse me, Susan,” he said apologetically.

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She composed herself, then gave him a hard look laced with reproach. He knew that it went beyond almost bumping into her. It probably derived from her patching up Lesley’s painful bottom. But it went even further back to a day two years ago when Barbara had suddenly summoned him to her study. Susan Fleming was there, her striking chestnut-auburn hair cut in a bob below her chin. She looked piqued as she stood in front of Barbara’s oversized, meticulous desk.

They had evidently been talking. Barbara lumbered to her feet and explained the situation.

“Mr. Bootie, this is Miss Fleming, one of our new English instructors. We have high hopes for her, but she has started off on the wrong foot with inappropriate dress. As you can see, she is wearing a skirt that is far too short. It sets a terrible example for the students.” She paused. “So I want you, as our resident disciplinarian, to demonstrate to our new arrival the penalty for such a rules infraction.”

Whipper, who remembered the days of miniskirts, did not think the teacher’s light brown skirt was too short. But it was tight, showing off the sculpted contours of her rear. He thought she looked great, but it was not his role to render aesthetic judgments. “Yes, headmistress?”

Smiling her tight smile, Barbara said, “I think a good spanking would clear the air.” Whipper nodded. He knew what she meant, but he still had questions. Anticipating them, she said, “Here. In my study. Right now.”

Whipper looked at the beautiful Miss Fleming, who was blushing and looked like she might just resign and walk out. He pulled up a chair, sat down, and waited.

She eyed, him, unmoving. He wasn’t bad-looking, but really, this was ridiculous.

“Lie across his lap,” said Barbara sharply.

She walked toward him, trying to maintain her dignity, still eyeing him, and placed herself over his lap. Her reddish hair glancingly touched his left hand. With his right hand he began to spank her prominent tightly-outlined rear. He gave her a quick ten, not particularly hard, then looked up at the headmistress. That avid personage signaled emphatically to him to step it up. Miss Fleming, meanwhile was squirming and shifting in his lap, and his prick was hardening. He began to pound hard on her plump upraised buttocks.

“Ow!” she cried. Then “Ow!” again. “You’re hurting me.” But he laid on a second ten or a dozen before stopping.

The young woman then slid off him, stood up, and shot him a look of hatred. She did not look at Barbara, whose eyes were gleaming with a lubricious light, but stormed out of the study.

Since that incident two years ago, she had shown her hostility by avoiding his gaze, brushing off his rare attempts at small talk, or saying sardonically, “Yes, headmistress.” For his part, he had gone straight back to his room from Barbara’s office and brought himself off, ejaculating into a pocket handkerchief. The curvaceous English teacher had become a star in his fantasies. He thought of her often— with lust—and even today, while she was on the stage, bottom working and paddling Julia, he had gotten an enormous hard-on. This was awkward because he was seated next to Miss Lemon, the religious teacher, whose normal expression of disapproval appeared to intensify when she looked at him. He had to excuse himself, go to the john, and subdue his boner in case a later vote called for caning, which of course it had.

Susan Fleming made a move to leave, but he didn’t want that, so he suddenly asked. “Do you think Lindsay will be able to sit down tomorrow?”

She halted and turned around. “I suspect so. No thanks to you.”

“You’re right. It was excessive. The other students must hate her.”

She eyed him. “And what about you, Mister ‘Whipper Bootie’?”

“Susan,” he began. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

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“Really,” she said sardonically. “I’m all ears.”

“Seriously, Susan. That day in the study… it was Barbara. She wanted to see you spanked hard. I’m sorry.”

Her face softened, and they walked together toward the faculty lodgings.

“You’re so lovely,” he continued, somewhat nervously. “And I hear you’re a fine teacher. I… uh… I don’t want you to still hate me.”

She stopped and looked up at him. “You surprise me... Whipper.”

“Call me Jim. Please.”

“Okay, Jim.” They walked on. Then he said, “I was sorry to see Mouse up there, you know, in front of the whole school. For nothing.”

She nodded, “I pretty much faked the second six,” she added, giving him a frank, slightly conspiratorial glance. “Have you ever done that, Jim?” Her question took him by surprise. He couldn’t think of a time when he had let up—maybe once—with a girl being punished for talking back to C. Etbin. “Oh, occasionally,” he managed. When her eyes continued to question him, he added, “I’m only human.”

“Yes, I see,” she said. “Well, it has been an interesting chat. Now I must go.”

“Goodbye, Susan.”

She raised a hand. Her hips swayed.

Meanwhile, the senior girl that they had been discussing, Phyllida Runkle—or Mouse—was sitting in her dorm bed reading. During the late afternoon, she had received condolences from several of her dormmates. “Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” she had said. And that was true. At least the physical part of it. Miss Fleming had gone easy on her. Maybe that was because she was one of the stars of English class, meaning that she was one of the few who weren’t afraid to answer Miss F’s questions.

Now the assignment was “Pride and Prejudice.” She put it down with a sigh. All those fusty letters. She thought of writing to her parents, telling them what had just happened. They would be incredulous of course.

Appalled. Gavaldene had been sold to them as a traditional school, leaning to strict, where she would find the structure that she needed.

The success rate of Gavaldene grads had been touted, that being measured by social cachet, prosperous marriage… and even college attendance. The governor’s wife, a class of ’87 ‘Denian, was always mentioned. Feature writers at newspapers wrote puff-pieces on the school with titles like, “What is Their Secret?” or “How Do They Do It?” Mouse knew that there were a few secrets that Gavaldene didn’t want anyone to know about. Outgoing and incoming mail was frequently monitored (i.e, opened). Cell phones were not allowed—likewise, PCs— and the classroom computers were used sparingly and under supervision. The school stood on a hill. At the bottom was a tall fence and a security post. Girls who attempted without special permission to communicate with the outside world were thrashed by the headmistress herself. That hideous Barbara Coat-Hanger. One girl had disappeared for days then never took off her clothes at school after that. Barbarism.

Barbaraism. Mouse mulled her plight, as more expressions of sympathy came in—some genuine, some fake.

Chapter 2 History Class; Mystery Note Chapel services were held before classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They were a cross between Catholic and Protestant, the greeting and benediction spoken in Latin while the Protestant hymnal was the source for general singing. Oddly enough, attendance was not compulsory. Most of the girls went, if only to savor the fusty antique atmosphere and an aura of sanctuary implied by the absence of corporal punishment. This puzzling anomaly, the lack of a rule leading to whipping, may have come about because the headmistress herself subscribed to a more exotic religion.

Math and English classes were held on the main floor of the principal building. On the second floor were Religion, Civics, and Comportment, and in the basement Geography, History, and Languages. For many years, a staple of the Gaveldene curriculum had been a survey course in European history from the Greco-Roman era to the 20th Century. It was taught by the formidable Dolores Morton, who was reported to have VOL 8, ISSUE 4

studied under Potter Partridge at Princeton. A stickler for detail, her rolemodel often seemed to be the mean-spirited Canadian pedant who had hosted the TV show “Jeopardy.” But in her classes, wrong answers brought more dire consequences. On this day, she had written on the blackboard, “The MIddle Ages,” and below that, “The Renaissance.” Time charts and maps were posted nearby, and she stood with her prized pointer in hand prepared to grill her students.

She pointed to one in the back, “Mary!”

“Yes, Miss Morton.” Mary stood up.

“What were the salient results of the Diet of Worms?”

“Diarrhea, for one,” whispered one student. Tittering laughter ensued.

“What was that? Who said that?” Her piercing eyes swept the classroom. “You, Malinda Raines. Come up front.” She gestured to a trestle table next to the blackboard. “Bend over the table.” The pretty blond senior complied, presenting her budding rear to the class. The long pointer then swished into it. There was a gasp from the young woman, then Miss Morton commanded, “Remain in that position.”

“She turned back to the class. “Now, who will answer my question?”

A student in the front row put up her hand. “The authorities in that region declared that it was officially Lutheran.”

Dolores Morton ruminated. “A passable answer, Katherine.” She walked a few paces.

“Now who will tell me the name of the monk who challenged the Medicis in Florence?”

Another hand went up. “Savanarola.”

“Yes, and what happened to him?”

“He was burnt at the stake.”

“When?”

Several hands shot up. “1498.”

“Yes. An important lesson to those villains who challenge authority.”

Malinda fidgeted slightly in the awkward bending posture. The teacher sliced her pointer once again into the jutting backside. “Now go back to your seat, Malinda.” Wincing, the young woman lowered her own hot seat into her desk chair.

“Now,” Miss Morton continued. “Which one of the Borgias commissioned Leonardo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel?” She looked around expectantly.

There was a silence. A number of the students frowned or looked at each other. Finally one from the third row tentatively raised her hand.

“Was it Cesare... Borgia?”

“No, you idiot,” exclaimed the history teacher. “The Sistine Chapel is in the Vatican. The pope commissioned the painting. And it was Michelangelo, not Leonardo. Come up here, Miss Lopez. Bend over the table. Be quick about it.”

Janine Lopez came forward. Nicknamed “J Lo” because of her resemblance to the famous actress, she was self-conscious. As she bent over, the plumpness of her behind became very noticeable. She tried to minimize it by pressing her stomach into the table’s edge, but it was no use. “Bottom out, Janine Lopez!”

Miss Morton then surveyed her from various angles. Switching the pointer to her right hand, she took up a position to the left of Miss Lopez.

Then she whipped the punishing stick full across the round hemispheres.

A cry of pain was followed by another energetic swipe just below the first. “Oww! Please, Doc— tor Mor— ton. I am sorry.”

“I know. And you’ll be sorrier still before I’m done.” So saying, she stung the big Lopez bottom a third time. “I will not tolerate stupidity in the classroom, is that clear?”

“Yes—owww!” as another cut seared in. Then a fifth stroke whipped the full rotundities, causing Janine to cry out even louder and to hop up and down. She was in tears.

“Now sit down!” barked Dolores Morton. But this was not so easily done, as the hardwood was unforgiving against her inflamed backside.

One of the back-row girls with no illusions about their instructor passed Janine a pillow.

And so it went for a long hour and ten minutes. Fully half-a-dozen young ladies felt the impact of the history teacher’s flexible pointer.

Some were consoled by the fact that these were not bare-bottom punishments. But they still stung, and that smarting sensation lasted a

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While and well into the afternoon for Janine. More names and dates were memorized, and Dolores Morton thought about how she would get the clever girls to bend over her table. She would reference an obscure fact from a lesson long ago. Everyone had to fear punishment. Lawful authority spared no one in a democracy. Gaveldene graduates would know that in their skins. Meanwhile she put a little checkmark beside the name of J. Lopez. Barring marked improvement that one would be recommended for Gaveldown, or for one of Barbara’s excursions to the woman’s prison annex where paddling machines were being perfected.

Just down the hall a different sort of history class was going on. Miss Edna WIlliams, who didn’t believe in spanking or in the rote approach to history, was showing a movie on the Puritans. It questioned the stereotype of the Puritans as killjoys, but ended with the witch trials - a contradiction she would discuss. But first she would get the girls’ impressions of the film. This was a lot easier than getting their responses to lectures or homework. Without ice-breakers like movies, music, plays performed by the girls themselves, their impersonations of famous Americans, and other entertainments, it was hard to get most of them to take part in any discussion. Certain bright, confident girls spoke up all the time, but a majority held back out of shyness or fear of saying the wrong thing. Her goal was to engage them in learning, and more often than not she succeeded. She didn’t clobber her students with knowledge, much less with the rulers, pointers, paddles, canes, and tawses in constant use at Gavaldene. For this reason she fell into the category of “token liberal.”

Headmistress Coat-Hanger wanted her out, yet she was frequently mentioned by those few alumni who gave money to the school. Money that could be spent as Barbara C-H liked, and she liked most to contribute it to her favorite organization, The Church of the Runic Trilogy.

Upstairs from the basement, the 11th-grade English class of Susan Fleming was underway. The poetry of Emily Dickinson was the subject of the day— indeed, of many days. Miss Fleming, who had seen a handful of her own poems published under the pseudonym Fiona Likely, did not need to wield the pointer or paddle on the buttocks of young ladies in her class. Her participation in the Gaveldown ritual, with its barebottomed scourging, was sufficient to deter those students who were thinking of skipping homework or cutting up in class. Everyone knew what that meant: a spanking. But it did not always go as she had planned. One time a slow student named Carla came in, a girl who had been accepted solely for her athletic prowess. Susan had expected to take Carla’s skirt off, bend her over the desk, and deliver ten snappy smacks by hand or ruler. But she changed her mind, partly out of compassion—the girl couldn’t help being a slow learner—but also because Carla was much bigger than her and could probably overpower her. An unlikely scenario, but instinct would at times upset decorum.

On another occasion, she was visited by a remarkably cheery bunny Leverett, who had obviously not bothered to do her homework. Susan took Bunny over her lap and was spanking her vigorously when the girl suddenly stood up and kissed her teacher full on the lips. “I love you, Miss Fleming!” she exclaimed.

Susan was startled. She disengaged from Bunny’s ardent mouth and stood up. “I like you too, Bunny. But you need to be less of a bunny and more of a student. Is that clear?” Bunny seemed to be eager for more kissing or spanking or both. “Or I will have to give your name to Miss Etbin or to Whipper.”

“Yes miss,” the girl said. She zipped up her skirt, ran her hands down the sides of her hair, and walked out of the office with a little smile back.

Susan sat at her desk. Soon she burst into laughter. She told the story to one or two friends, who always seemed to be amused. Yet there was an underlying tension, an unspoken aspect that made her stop. Only someone in the same line of work, administering discipline, would see the humor in it. After her Friday chat with Whipper—that is, Jim—she had thought briefly of telling the story to him. But she dispelled the thought. He had a lot more to prove to her.

After lunch, the school was swept for the implements of pain. Visitors were coming. Not very many, as it turned out. About two dozen, most of whom were from headmistress Barbara’s favorite organization. But there were a few pairs of parents, scouting the place out, and a couple of girls in their late teens. Bunches of roses were presented (they had been 28

catered by a florist in town and kept in the fridge). Gaveldene girls curtseyed to the visitors at every turn. The playing field, where hurriedly dressed girls went through the motions of hockey, was briefly observed, then the contingent headed for chapel. Inside, Barbara boasted that the two stained-glass windows came from a sister school in Italy, closed after World War Two. The organ, according to her, was a unique Waterford instrument purchased through a special endowment by wealthy alumni.

Next, the visitors were taken to the massive oak tree where their shoes crunched on the acorns. Then it was Barbara’s office for punch and white-bread watercress sandwiches, cut into fours, and bagel crackers with dip.

There were portraits of the President, the founder and first headmistress, Hortensia P. Lodgepole, and Barbara herself. An unstaged moment occurred when one of the wives settled in front of a smaller portrait of a woman not identified. Barbara came limping over. “That was left over from my predecessor. We have no idea who she was.” She scrutinized the painting. “A large donor, presumably.

“Who chose to remain anonymous,” the woman remarked. “Curious.”

“Ah, a fresh bowl of fruit punch. Come have some.” They walked to the punch table, where the girls who had brought the new bowl curtsied.

Outside, as the guests departed, they were serenaded by a chorus of six students.

“We are the girls of Gavaldene Proper ladies will we be We will be heard and seen Social leaders - wait and see!”

Some visitors put their hands together. Others nodded, in approval or embarrassment. The headmistress and her top lieutenants were congratulating themselves on a job well done when a folded piece of notepaper was found in the hallway. Inside was a message, scribbled in longhand: “Help! Please help. We are hurting.” It was immediately brought to Barbara, who was furious. Her face reddened and she stamped her foot. Turning to gavel-mistress C. Etbin, she bellowed, “Get to the bottom of this. I want a report on my desk by 4pm tomorrow.”

C. Etbin stood to attention. “It will be done,” she said, saluting.

Meanwhile, a cobalt-blue Ford Focus pulled into the interstate. A middle-aged man in a tailored black suit was driving. Seated next to him was his pensive wife. She spoke, “Unbelievable.”

He glanced at her. “What do you mean, honey?”

“She has a portrait of Edith Cavidec in her office.”

Edith Cav— Who is that?”

“Oh, just a schoolteacher in the 1920’s who nearly beat a girl to death.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not kidding. The girl went to the hospital. She went to jail. And there were other girls.”

“How did you learn of this? It sounds kind of obscure.”

“It is. I found out about her in grad school. A course on educational psychology. Inspired by Alice Miller’s books. I was doing a paper on what she calls the Schwwarze pedagogic. Dark practices in the schools, harsh discipline, whipping.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. They seemed nice enough. Of course all that curtseying, the school song - that was corny. You don’t think—” “I’m afraid so. This is one school we can cross off the list for Helen.”

She put a hand to her head. “My God, if I hadn’t noticed that painting...”

He grunted. “Good thing you’re the artsy type.”

“Yeah,” She shook her head. “Unbelievable. I should probably be telling someone about this… besides you, I mean.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “We don’t know for sure. Logic says you’re right, but logic isn’t evidence.”

She smiled. “You’re so lawyerly. Still-” They drove on in silence, Gaveldene receding into the distance….

Like this novella sample? Let us know at ideagems@aol.com.

Bret Raushenbush started writing poetry at 14 and branched out soon to fiction. Poems and stories have appeared in dozens of littles, most recently Atlantic/ Pacific, Left Curve, and here! He is a social and media critic, and a peace acti-vist of sorts. He grew up in DC but has lived mostly in the Pacific NW, and Florida.

TOUGH LIT. IX

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

Savage Light

How is the filmmaking industry in New Orleans?

An Interview with Horror/Sci-fi Filmmaker Kriss Hoffman

Hollywood film is booming here. We have a thriving indie community, but none of us have the funds to shoot like the big boys do.

Writing is not only about prose and poetry. It’s about the media arts.

I am pleased to introduce Kriss Hoffman of Savage Light Studios in New Orleans. Kriss has a special place in my heart for focusing on the horror and sci-fi genres, as well as producing one of my short screenplays, “Two Hits.” I asked Kriss to tell us about himself and his productions.

What are the pluses and minuses of shooting there?

Pluses: We have a thriving community and as my team is professional and courteous, we are developing a pretty powerful following.

Minuses: Because Hollywood shoots here. We get hamstringed at times because we can't pay (YET... we are working on some investors). And it is... HOT... DAMN HOT... did I mention it is hot?

What have you learned about production?

A lot... We started out with the motto "We are independent! We don't need the Hollywood way!" As we progressed, we learned that there are some things that Hollywood does that they do for a reason.

We use those things now. But mostly, we learned how to use our gear and to tell a story.

What are the hurdles and triumphs?

What is your background and when did you start producing videos?

WHY? My background is odd... I left New Orleans with a friend 20 years ago and headed for Los Angeles to make our fortune. We had big plans and thought, "If Kevin Smith can do it, why can't we?" Our car broke down in Missouri. Through a long confluence of events, I ended up married and in college. I was a few credits away from a degree in computer science and electrical engineering, I came to the realization that I didn't want to do that for a living.

When I moved back to New Orleans after Katrina, I started producing films. I never looked back.

Why? Because I have the need to create. If I'm not shooting and editing, I am writing. If I'm not writing, I am taking photographs.

There is a fire of creation burning in my skull, and if I don't create, I think my head will burst into flame.

What are the types of projects you are producing?

All kinds. We just made a new comedy short, The Master, and we're shooting a sci-fi comedy short on the first called IT. We've done everything from Lonely, a disturbing portrait of mental illness, to The Quest, a documentary series where we ask average people deep questions. We are currently working on a feature film called Extraordinary, which is about the everyday lives of superheroes.

We're pitching a reality program based on Project Z … and speaking of Project Z, we're getting back to that near the end of the year.

Which are your faves to work on?

For me... it's all about character. Any piece that has a deeply emotional component, compelling characters and is moving...

Without character, you have nothing but a spectacle. Don't get me wrong, I love a good spectacle, but my work is about that emotional connection.

We have a lot of hurdles. Most of our hurdles deal with money. It's hard to produce any films when you don't have any. In spite of this, we've put out some quality work and if we continue to suffer a dearth of funds, we'll continue to produce quality work.

Currently, with the exception of one festival, every time we submit a film to a festival, we are selected to be shown. It's a big feather in our hat.

Tell us about the film festival SLS is hosting this fall. What can be entered?

It's the Savage Light Horror Film Festival. We're taking horror films of every ilk: zombies, werewolves, slashers, psychological thrillers...

ALL OF THEM. We want to see them.

What's the entry process?

Go to the site (www.savagelightstudios.com/filmfest), fill out the form and send it in.

Where is it being held and when?

The film fest will be an online affair held October 29-31 on the Savage Light Studios website. We are working on some introductions by some relatively well-known Horror Hosts from the Vortexx (http://www.horrorhost.net/) Where can viewers see your work?

We have a couple locations. http://blip.tv/projectz is where Episodes of Project Z can be seen. We also have a youtube channel called "The Savage Light Showcase." (http://www.youtube.com/slsprojectz) This is where we show all of our work that has been showed at festival.

Do you have downloads or DVDs for sale?

We are currently working on an online shop. Merch will be available through a link on our website at www.savagelightstudios.com.

Build your own monster story or script.

Learn to write horror for fun and profit! http://vu.ksurf.net/catalog/3112.html VOL 8, ISSUE 4

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73rd Annual Conference August 12 - August 16, 2013 Have you always wanted to write?

Do you need the support of fellow writers? Are you looking for inspiration (a visit from the Muse)? Why not plan to attend the five-day 73rd Writers Conference at Ocean Park, Maine? The conference registration begins at 4:00 pm on Monday, August 12.

Attendees are weeklong participants.

Workshops start at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday and continue through Friday until early afternoon. The five-day conference fee of $200 is discounted to $190 if sent prior to July 1. Conference fee at the door is $225. No refunds will be issued. Our keynote speaker for the Writers Conference will address this year's conference participants at the Temple on Monday evening at 7 p.m. (THIS EVENT IS OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY.) Poetry writing on the beach is a Thursday morning event, followed by coffee and pastry at the Ocean Park Library.

There are also several writing contests both in poetry and prose that participants are eligible to enter.

Call 401-598-1424 or e-mail jbrosnan@jwu.edu today for more information!

Jumpstart your writing career in a supportive environment by joining us this August.

A new “visionary” online magazine where writers can publish on a range of topics: ARTæEDUCATIONæPOLITICSæBUSINESSæECONOMICSæSPORTSæ SCIENCEæHEALTHæHUMORæENTERTAINMENTæLITERATUREæ REAL LIFE SIGN UP FOR YOUR FREE ACCOUNT AND SUBMIT YOUR WORK!