REMEMBER THE DRUID

Kody Koenig the World Was busy. Twenty minutes away, Chicago was filled with the sound of horns and the smell of exhaust, but out here, nature ruled. The birds outside were singing as one beautiful choir. The golden grain rolled like waves as the breeze danced through each blade. The first beams of light shone through the cracks between the off-white curtains of the Riverside home.

The house was peacefully quiet. A man lay in bed, dreaming sweet stories. Down the hall, in the kitchen, a woman with white, curled hair set down a kettle and listened to the stove click until the gas lit. She tried every morning not to wake him, he definitely needed the rest these days, but her fatigue made her clumsy. She was nearly asleep at the table when the sound of a jimmying key rattled her awake.

“Morning, Don.” She sat up and fingered through her thin hair.

“Morning, Mom.” Don shut the front door behind him, trying to make the squeak of the old hinges as quiet as the rest of the still sleeping house.

“I just put tea down.” Her head slumped into her wrinkled hand.

“Sounds great, Mom. Thanks.” He set down one folder after another on the granite counter. After setting down his pen, the final piece of his load, he asked, “Dad awake yet?”

“No, he’s still out. Doctor said he’d probably be sleeping more.” She moved awkwardly to the cabinet for two mugs and the sugar.

“Carter is coming at 10. I should probably wake him, huh?” Don rubbed an eye.

“Oh, probably.” She set one cup on the counter and used the other to point at her son. “Be gentle, he probably doesn’t remember.”

Remember. That word felt like it had different meaning now. A sicker, twisted meaning. Don remembered mornings in the Whitman household when he was a boy. Mom would wake up early to spend an hour or so in her greenhouse. By the time he came down from his room she was washing the dirt and fertilizer out from under her fingernails. His father would be writing in one of his many little notebooks. It was usually a new monster inspired by one of the kooky characters on the cereal boxes. Before bed, Don remembered being his father’s test audience for a new story that he’d slaved on all day. Sadly, Don would often miss how the story ended, because he’d fall victim to sleep.

“Morning, Dad.” Don sat on the side of the bed and gently touched his father’s shoulder, much like his father had done to him when he was younger.

His father shook slightly, but ultimately, he continued to sleep. Don didn’t know why he didn’t try to wake him again right away. He sat there, partially sunken into the layered blankets, and looked around the twilight room. Next to the bed was his father’s nightstand topped with his glasses, his watch, a small bowl containing his morning meds, and a sticky note: “Morning, love. Take your pills and meet me in the kitchen for tea.”

“Your little druid.” Mom always signed with something to do with her Swords &

Spells character from back in the 70s. She claimed it helped him keep things together up there.

Across from Don’s seat at the bed, was the door to the bathroom. On it was another sticky note: “The left switch lights the torch over the tub, the middle one lights the ones over the basin, and the right one makes the wind howl from the heavens.—Your little druid.”

His Mom had been married to a writer for nearly 50 years, and it showed by the way she explained simple light switches and the bathroom fan.

Don had almost forgotten why he was there in the dark. He turned and tapped his father again. “Dad, hey, it’s time to get up. Good morning.”

The mound under the covers awkwardly squirmed to see who had awoken him. “Good morning,” the father said slowly, confused.

“Ready to start your day?” Don helped his father sit up. He looked over at his nightstand at the note.

“I need to take my pills and meet the druid in the kitchen for tea,” he said, pointing a shaky finger at the note.

“Yep, that sounds like a good plan.” Don sat up to get his father some water from the bathroom. He heard his dad speak as he lit the torches.

“Who is this druid?”

Don let out a chuckle as he watched the glass fill. “Ruth,” he called from the bathroom. “She’s quite the lady. I think you’ll really like her.”

“Oh, yeah. Ok.” He took the glass from his son and worked through his pills one by one.

While he waited for his father to finish, Don fetched his father’s robe, which was draped over a chair in the corner. On his way back, he stopped at his father’s desk to clean up some papers and pens.

“Hey.” His father pointed at the note again. “I’m supposed to meet the druid. Who’s she?”

Don wasn’t in a cute mood the second time. It hurt him deep down. “Ruth, your wife. You remember she played the druid with you and Carter and William?”

“Oh, yes. Ok.” He nodded with a face that showed he was still searching for answers.

Remember. Don remembered seeing his father’s books in commercials on TV. Kids rolling dice and shooting over-acted smiles directly to the screen. “Buy Swords & Spells now and unlock your imagination!” Don never really got into playing the game like all of his friends did. He had already heard all about the dungeons and monsters from his father. He remembered waking up in the middle of the night as a child and seeing Mom, Dad, Carter, and William huddled around the kitchen table with the sound of plastic dice skipping across the wood.

“Ready for tea with Mom, Dad?” Don helped his father up, wrapped his arm with his, and walked with him to the kitchen.

“Morning, my mighty warrior.” Ruth held up an imaginary sword next to her cheek with both hands.

Dad let out a little huff with a smile, not quite a laugh, but close. “Morning.”

She came over and kissed him on the forehead and caressed his stubbly cheek. Don sat down next to his father at the table to keep an eye on him while he ate. The druid made her way back to the stove to tend to her scrambled eggs.

“Hey, dear, Carter will be here soon to say hello. I thought you could sit in the garden again. You two seemed to like it back there so much last time.”

Gary, the mighty warrior, was battling his fork. “Who?”

“Carter. The red mage, dear.”

“Ah, the red mage, I like him.” He chomped down on his fork.

“Here’s your tea, dear.” She delivered it with a warm smile. Her rosy cheeks made her eyes almost disappear.

“Thanks.” He looked at her with a blank stare but a genuine smile.

After breakfast was finished, it wasn’t long until Carter showed up. He took over the watch on Gary, but the druid was never far. Carter took him to the garden, just behind the house, where they sat in white wicker chairs with dusty floral cushions.

“It’s good to see you, Gary. I missed ya.” Carter stared out into the flowing grain. “Do you ‘member me?”

Gary’s brow furrowed, and he looked down into his lap. It took a second, but he looked back at the sprawling field. “You’re the red mage.”

“That’s right, bud.” Carter cracked a smile as his eyes started to water.

Remember. Carter remembered the day Ruth called him about Gary’s diagnosis. They said it must be Alzheimer’s. It made sense. The late-night writing sessions had been getting more difficult and less productive. Some days Gary forgot him and then tried to pass it off like he remembered, and other days Carter didn’t even know if Gary had worked out their identities over the several hours they were there. Carter held onto the memories of his best friend from years ago, because he was all but just about forgotten now.

The two had sat there long enough for the day to grow colder and a bit darker. Carter had told stories from memory about their old adventures, bad rolls, and laughs around the table. Towards the end, Carter grabbed one of the rule books and read from near the back, where Gary wrote some sample stories for the creatively challenged, which he never had trouble with in his prime. After the Midwest air got a bit chilly, Carter helped Gary in, said his goodbyes, and left for the evening.

“Did you have fun with the red mage today, dear?” The druid was gliding around the kitchen preparing dinner.

“I like him. I wish he’d come over more.” Gary was unaware that Carter had been coming every free moment he had.

“Don’t worry, love. You’ll get to see him again real soon.” She broke focus from the boiling pot to hold her husband’s hand for a moment.As she turned back to the stove, Don entered the kitchen with his folders and binders. Ruth couldn’t shake how much he looked like his father at the same age.

“How’s studying going?” She stirred her cauldron.

“Ugh, finals start next week, and I don’t feel like I’m prepared at all, Mom.” He set down his things to slip his arms through the sleeves of his dark trench coat.

“Well, it doesn’t help you’re always here. I’ve handled your father this long, you know. I was the one that pulled him from the Cavern of Anguish.” She lifted a small steaming spoon to her lips to taste her creation. Don chuckled.

“Mom, that was many years ago, and in a game I might add.” She only responded with a quick glare and a dismissive wave.

“Good night, Mom.” Don weaved around the counter and bent over to kiss his mother on the head. He stopped at his father on the way to the door. “Night, Dad. See you tomorrow.”

Don shuffled his things to one arm to give his father a hug with the other.

After their son’s departure, the druid made up two bowls of soup, poured two glasses of milk, and set the table for her and her mighty warrior.

“Here, love. Just for you. Potato soup, your favorite.” She placed a towel in his lap and sat next to him.

“Thank you—uh—”

“I’m the druid, dear.” She looked up from her bowl with a smile. “You remember me, ya goof.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you.”

Remember. The druid remembered the night she fell for Gary. He had taken her dancing a few nights after they wrote the first pages of the rule book. Gary was a terrible dancer, but just like with everything he did, what he lacked in skill, he made up for with enthusiasm. Even away from the table and dice, he was her knight in shining armor, so strong and passionate. The day Gary learned he was going to be a father was magical. He called up everyone he knew, even his publicist, and screamed in their ear about how he was going to be a dad. Nothing made her love him more than that day.

“Sweet dreams, love.” The druid pulled up the blankets and snuggled him in with a hug. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen for tea in the morning, okay?”

“Okay.” He smiled as she planted a kiss on his lips.

The house fell calm for the night as the two drifted off.

The next morning Gary slowly worked himself awake. He didn’t want to wake up, but he felt he needed to be awake. He shakily sat up in bed and scanned the unfamiliar room. The note next to his bed said he needed to take his pills. He needed water for that. He worked himself to his feet and shuffled to the door to the bathroom. This note told him how to get the light he needed above the sink. He returned with his water and sat on the bed. Gary wondered why he had needed this glass again. His eyes caught the yellow post-it on his nightstand. Oh, yes, his pills. He didn’t see them in his bowl, so he must have already taken them. He sat against the headboard, again scanning the room. Sticky notes were scattered around on every surface, like dull stars against the dimly lit room. Gary looked down to his right and saw a woman, so peaceful. She was very beautiful; she rivaled the day he met her.

“Ruth, is it time to get up?” Gary fleetingly remembered how warm she always felt, but when he touched her cheek she felt cold.

“Ruth?” He gripped her shoulder.

Remember. Gary didn’t remember much. He couldn’t call it remembering. It was more like a television playing in the background of a conversation. He picked up pieces but most of it was lost. Gary saw Ruth, with her gray hair, a gentle way about her, and his head labeled her as the caring druid. He spotted a small boy, brown hair like his, and he was named son. He stood no taller than a hobbit if he recalled. A young man with swept-over, graying, red hair and a beard to match, was in his head somewhere. He knew him as the red mage. Gary felt there was another character, but the faint memory never came to visit him anymore.

Carter opened the front door for the EMTs. The house was silent, all besides the rattling and whining coming from the gurney wheels. He shut the door behind them and sat in the front room. He could hear the tires crunching their way down the gravel driveway. The mage didn’t know if he could stomach the loss of another party member. She was a mother of one but treated everyone around her like one of her own. She couldn’t go. Not now.

Don was just inside the kitchen. He stared blankly. Emotions were going to war inside him. He was petrified, depressed, and guilt-ridden. The thoughts of heading anywhere near the bedroom made his stomach twist. Tears careened from his eyes and became lost in the sweat of his face.

He had lost his mother, best friend, and the person that inspired him to major in agriculture. He had to force his legs to move. This normally simple walk felt like a perilous quest he wouldn’t return from. Don nudged the door open and peered in from the hall to see his father sitting on the bed. It took all his strength to step into the room, and he had to muster even more to sit next to his father without collapsing into tears.

The house was eerily quiet. A son and his father sat on the bed, not knowing what to do. Down the hall, in the living room, a man with graying red hair sat with his face in his hands and tears escaped through his fingers. The kitchen was still. Every dish was stored. The worn appliances would now get to rest.

Gary turned to look at the young man to his right, oblivious to his pain. Raising an unsteady, aged hand, he pointed to the little note by his bed.

“I’m supposed to have tea with the druid this morning, so I better take my pills.”

Crossing Over

Identity elle pittman Screenprint illustration.

Noviembre

Raul Cueto Osorio

Cada vez que el otoño murmura entre los árboles y obliga a las hojas flotar lentamente, zigzagueando hasta posarse silenciosamente en el frío y húmedo suelo de Noviembre, año tras año hay un búho, camuflado entre las ramas, intentando responder a su propia pregunta ¿Cuál será el último pensamiento de las hojas antes de desvanecerse entre el rocío y la tierra? El búho con el tiempo encontró una enigmática respuesta, pero de tanto observar, descubrió la oculta belleza que tiene el delicado e intrincado proceso entre el principio y el fin de las cosas...

November

Raul Cueto Osorio

Every time autumn murmurs among the trees and forces the leaves to float slowly, zigzagging until they settle silently on the cold and wet November ground, year after year there is an owl, camouflaged among the branches, trying to answer its own question, What will be the last thought of the leaves before vanishing between the dew and the earth? Over time, the owl found an enigmatic answer, but after observing so much, it discovered the hidden beauty of the delicate and intricate process between the beginning and the end of things...

alexis phillips Digital photograph.

Sabios Y Olvidados

Raul Cueto Osorio

Olvidado sendero, quien sabe cuantas veces has visto el sol aparecer entre lejanas montañas púrpuras, ese mismo sol que se desvanece en un eterno, infinito y melancólico océano de tonos anaranjados. Enséñanos cómo encuentras espacio entre la esperanza y la resignación.

Solitario árbol, tú que te resignas al adiós de tus hojas cada vez que el otoño murmura entre tus intrincados e irrepetibles patrones, semejantes a olvidadas constelaciones que no ascendieron a las alturas. Enséñanos cómo abrazar la adversidad como una oportunidad para aprender de los obstáculos y desafíos.

Olvidada y solitaria casa, espero que el opaco y silencioso vacío que deja la presencia del invierno y su fría respiración no te borren del camino. Recuerda que el sol seguirá enviando calor y la luna seguirá orbitando mientras se compadece de tus solitarias noches.

Wise And Forgotten

Raul Cueto Osorio

Forgotten path, who knows how many times you have seen the sun appear between distant purple mountains, that same sun that fades into an eternal, infinite and melancholic ocean of orange tones. Show us how you find space between hope and resignation.

Solitary tree, you who resign yourself to the goodbye of your leaves every time autumn murmurs among your intricate and unrepeatable patterns, similar to forgotten constellations that did not ascend to the heavens. Teach us how to embrace adversity as an opportunity to learn from obstacles and challenges.

Forgotten and lonely house, I hope that the opaque and silent emptiness left by the presence of winter and its cold breath do not erase you from the path. Remember that the sun will continue to send heat and the moon will continue to orbit while taking pity on your lonely nights.

A House Like A Rosary

Heather Mars

You are small in the hospital bed. A phantom of your former self, fading daily. I lie beside you, holding your hand, running my fingers along the fine bones. I breathe deliberately. My breath pulls in smoothly, stretching out moments, and marking time. I begin to spin a filament made of words with each exhale. Twisting fragments of fractured thoughts, I weave a net to capture you, tethering soul to body, holding you fast. I build a sanctuary around you.

Enter through the kitchen, the front door is for strangers, death, or marriage. My grandfather carved hearts into the dark wood cabinets, binding love and sustenance. Come through to the dining room. Gather around the table. It’s the same one you’ve eaten at for your entire life. We both have played on its knees, under the tablecloth. Next is the living room, with the davenports, the fireplace where stockings were hung, the cast iron radiators with their bowls of water rimmed with fossil-like deposits left from the well water turning to vapor.

I am summoning ghosts, people and places who were gone before you were born to carry you on their shoulders like St Christopher across the deep river that is this night.

The nurse arrives, increasing the heat in the room, relieving the stress from your heart. I continue my seance.

There is more downstairs; the front parlor with grandma’s African violets and sewing machine, grandpa’s piano (first the upright, then the grand, an evolution of musical joy), the den with its matched rocking chairs. But, let’s go up the big mahogany staircase, rub the newel post as you pass. Passing the four bedrooms, we go to the attic door, up the tight twist of the forbidden stair into a magical, storybook place, where as a child I found forgotten medals, school awards, agates and smooth rocks, desiccated birds who lost their way, and generations of bygone joys.

Your heart rate drops below 30.

Wait. There’s more. I recite rooms like a rosary. The laundry room turned sunroom, the old garage with its colony of feral cats, the new garage with grandpa’s shop, the three porches, the cellar doors. The cellar. Wooden steps descend, worn concave with footfalls, to part earth, part finished space, moist, earthy and cool. Shelves house generations of preserves, deeper than the arm can reach; clear glass, turning to blue, ring lids reverting to hinged, a time machine of jam, pickles, tomatoes, preserved harvests from decades previous, new year eclipsing the past.

I pause, listen to the machines sounding another alarm. You start to cry. The scant weight of your body hurts your bones and joints. You are so tired.

Begin again. We enter through the back door. The front door is for strangers. Stay with me, in this red brick house with white trim where I can keep you safe like a memory. I cannot make you well. All I can promise is that I love you more than all of these rooms and everything they contained.

BLACK DRESS Angela Griffin

One day my mother comes home with a length of soft, dark fabric draped over her arm.

Because, she says simply, meeting my questioning eye, every girl should have a black dress.

What she means is that I am growing up. Soon there will be art galas, Christmas dinners, and band concerts where the silver horn in my lap will twinkle in the stage lights, bright against the night of my dress. Family reunions, professional photos, and graduation days robed in white and blue.

What she means is that the whole world is growing up. Soon the girl in the grade ahead of me will die of leukemia. I’ll play the piano as my sister-in-law’s father is eulogized in Spanish, drop a tear on my grandmother’s cheek, serene in her silk-lined casket. I’ll stand on the edge of a verdant lawn as my cousin, whose name I learned last week, is buried in a cemetery I have driven by every month for three years.

What better reminder of my mortality than that black dress? Every day I stand at my closet, calculating the sum of my mood and the weather. My fingers sift through flannels and florals, sweaters and sportswear, the measured clicking of the hangers a heartbeat of days and occasions. And at the end of the rack, at the end of everything, is that black dress.

Someday, my mother was saying, your life will rustle in the wake of someone’s passing. You’ll slip the sleek fabric over your head, stand before the mirror, smooth the neckline, and settle your soul.

Every girl should have a black dress.

Vanitas Self Portrait

laura sWingen

2022. 80” x 36”

Acrylic on salvaged door.

Termite Connection

/FRAGMENTS/

Samantha Hope Boulgarides

there is more empty space than stars meteor showers shed fragments of eternity fall fast - now break and blaze into the night the bigger i am the smaller i get black holes swallow years pluto is no longer a planet and i am so far from whole /hamster, doorknob, ballet/ self destructing satellite growing smaller by the second time-space slips through my fingers the bigger i am the smaller i get time’s hands can’t catch me a satellite with no memory

/dolphins, cheetah print, headbands/ catching fire as i redshift through the atmosphere patching the charred edges of my space suit i no longer feel what created me

/hydra, dipper, pegasus/ fragments of eternity break off and blaze into the night there is more empty space than stars

/horseshoe, peter rabbit, goldenspring/ black holes swallow years the bigger i am the smaller i get mile markers fade in the distance

/33, four square, strawberry milk/ there is more empty space than stars i can’t contain it

/holocene, ripped jeans, split-ends/ memories leak through the ozone twenty-One, 10, zero

Contrpointalism

laura sWingen

2021. 20” x 30”

Acrylic on canvas.

Space Rock

alex schotzko

Digital photograph.