by Suzanne Farrell Smith

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip.  Sir James M. Barrie

Honorable Mention: $100

Summer Swim by David W. Berner

Deborah Garber

It‘s early June, a Sunday, and Dad is trying to reassemble the backyard pool, the same one we‘ve had for the last five years. ―Pull the hose around the tree and up close here,‖ he says.

I am ten years old, impatient for summer, impatient for the pool. I‘m already in my royal blue bathing suit, barechest, barefoot, my cherubic belly protruding over the white drawstring tied too tightly at the middle of my waist. ―When you get the hose up here, go back and turn the water on, but only when I tell you.‖ Dad tries to direct this project with the same simple, direct commands.

It‘s a two-man job. You have to stretch out the thin steel outside wall of the pool onto the backyard grass so you can get the kinks out and wash it down with the water from a hose. The metal section of the pool has been rolled up and stored away in the garage for nearly nine months.

I run over the grass and walkway, navigating my sensitive, shoeless feet around the cracks in the stone toward the outside faucet, nearly shivering in anticipation of the first summer swim of the season. I put my hand on the knob and peek around the corner of the house, poised for the next command from Dad. ―Hold on, get back here,‖ he says. ―I still need you to help stretch out the liner onto the grass.‖

How long is this going to take? I slump back to the yard, knowing now this isn‘t going to happen at the speed any young boy would hope for.

The blue liner, nearly matching the color of my bathing suit, is thick, heavy, flexible plastic. It, like the metal, has been rolled up all winter and needs a bath. When we unroll it, there are two or three spiders inside and a dead moth.

―We‘re going to need a little soap on this,‖ Dad says. ―Go ask your mother for a small cup of laundry detergent.‖

Now he needs soap? The pool set-up is becoming a far more laborious job than I would have liked. Not what I expected. And instead of getting closer to a swim, I now seem farther away than ever. I take the long way into the house, stop at the refrigerator for a drink of milk from the bottle, grab a cookie from the cupboard drawer, and pause to pet the dog. ―Mom?‖ I yell from the kitchen, kneeling on the floor, my hand still on the dog‘s head between his ears.

My mother appears from the basement. ―Dad needs soap for the pool,‖ I tell her, my eyes and hand fixed on the dog.

She reaches under the sink and pulls out a large box of Tide, pours about two inches of it into a plastic cup. I give the dog a few more pets, grab another cookie from the cupboard drawer, and walk the soap to the backyard. ―Where‘ve you been, for god‘s sake?‖ Dad is standing near the blue liner with his hands on his hips, the hose hanging over his shoulder. ―You want to swim or not?‖

I don‘t say a thing as he snaps the cup out of my hands. ―Did you bring a scrub brush?‖ ―You want one?‖

Dad rolls his eyes and slaps the palm of his hand on his forehead.

I turn and run to the door to the kitchen. ―Mom?‖ ―Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,‖ I hear my father say in a stiff, staccato beat, shaking his head and launching into a quiet laugh.

I rush out of the kitchen, the screen door slamming behind me, hoping to ease my dad‘s infuriation with my waning lack of focus by quickly retrieving what he needs. ―Scrub brush, Dad,‖ I say, dutifully handing him what my mother had given me, the brush with the large handle and the worn, coarse bristles on one end.

He takes it, says nothing, and looks at me slowly, shaking his head. I don‘t want to make him angry, so I give it a few seconds before I ask the question. ―How long to do you think, Dad?‖ ―Oh, for Christ sake.‖ He laughs in disbelief. ―Go turn on the hose.‖

This time, I don‘t hurry. It seems now that rushing isn‘t helping me get any closer to the cool waters of a backyard pool. I walk to the outside faucet as if I were walking to my school, a slow, meandering pace that‘s interrupted only for a second to kick an early season dandelion. ―Jesus, David, take your finger out of your ass!‖ Finger out of my ass? It’s not in my ass. ―I would like to get this done before August,‖ my father crackles, his voice rougher than before and unsympathetic.

I start half-running, a visceral response. At the same time I feel my face flush. Did I have my finger up my ass? Why would I do that? I have never heard of someone with their finger up their ass.

I turn the faucet knob and wait to hear my father‘s next command.

The fire i' the flint Shows not till it be struck. William Shakespeare  The Life of Timon of Athens ―Good,‖ he yells from the yard. ―Stay there until I tell you to turn it off.‖

I stand alone, out of Dad‘s sight, trying to figure out what in the world he meant. Finger up my ass? Obviously, the subtleties of understanding figurative language are still years away. ―Turn it off,‖ Dad yells. ―But don‘t move.‖ Should I ask him? I can’t ask him now, can I? ―Ok, turn it back on.‖

I hear the scrape of the brush and the rush of water on metal. I lean against the aluminum siding of the house, still out of Dad‘s sight.

Who would put their finger up their ass? ―OK, turn it off. We‘re done.‖

The clean-up is over, and when I return to the yard, Dad is already shaping the metal walls of the pool into a circle, snapping the ends together to create a round shape two feet high and twenty feet around. ―Grab that end of the liner and help me lift it over the edges,‖ Dad asks.

The pool is beginning to take form as Dad works his way around the circle, connecting the long plastic rim that holds the liner to the metal. ―How long will it take to fill it up?‖ I ask, hoping somehow my question will give what feels like a plodding, tedious timeline a bit of a boost. ―I don‘t know. Couple hours?‖ Dad says, staying focused on his work, continuing to snap the plastic rim into place.

Couple hours? I say to myself, repeating words my father would say. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I kick another dandelion.

Eventually, Dad falls into a rhythm, snapping his way around the circle with a certain tempo. He even begins to whistle. ―Dad?‖ I ask. ―What‘s up?‖ he says, suspending his version of Johnny Cash‘s ―Ring of Fire‖ just long enough to respond. I can’t believe I’m actually going to ask this. ―What did you mean about ‗finger up the ass‘?‖ ―What?‖ Dad says, halting the job for a moment to look at me. ―What you said, finger in my ass, what do you mean?‖

Dad stops snapping, and from a crouched position he turns and sits on the grass, puts his hands on his knees and asks, ―You‘re serious?‖

My face flushes just as it did before.

Dad shakes his head, like he‘s done a few times this afternoon. ―It‘s nothing, David,‖ he says, beginning a chuckle and returning to the work of fastening the liner. ―I just got a little frustrated, a little impatient. Forget I said that.‖

I smile to match his chuckle, but not knowing exactly why.

―Well,‖ I say, ―just so you know. I did not have my finger up my ass.‖

His chuckle erupts into to a full, hearty laugh, as if someone just delivered the punch line to his favorite joke. I smile. Again, not knowing exactly why.

The sun is behind my father now, creating a shadow over his face. He wipes a few beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his right hand. ―You really are something, David,‖ he says, still laughing.

I think for just a moment. I’m really something; what does that mean? But quickly dismissing the question, I look at the nearly assembled pool in front of me and suddenly believe the first summer swim is truly going to happen. ―Dad?‖ I ask. ―You gonna swim with me later?‖

Through his now waning laughter, in between the final inhales and exhales, he says, ―There isn‘t anything that sounds better. Not a single thing.‖ He snaps the final foot of the liner rim into place. ―Let her rip.‖

I run to the faucet, twisting my body so I can reach my hand behind me and yank the bathing suit bottom out from between the cheeks of my buttocks. Is this what he means? Finger in my ass? I jump over the walkway stones, keeping my bare feet from the uneven ground, nearly falling from my unbridled eagerness and grab hold of the faucet knob to keep my balance. I use both hands to turn it clockwise and begin to hear the rush of water inside the long green garden hose. Inch by inch, water rises from the bottom of the pool‘s blue liner, creating soft splashes that fill the late afternoon air.

David Berner works in the Chicago area as an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago, a writer, and a broadcaster. His recent writing has appeared in Perigee (Publication for the Arts), The Write Magazine, Rivulets, Clef Notes, and in a number of other publications—online and in print.

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Honorable Mention: $100

Married by a Monk by Suzanne Farrell Smith

Angkor Thom, once a majestic Kamil Dawson walled city enclosing nearly four square miles of the Cambodian jungle, is now a complex of stunning ruins. Lively markets and inexpensive resort hotels surround the site, so tourists (like me) crowd in close. Angkor Thom‘s monuments, terraces, and temples were erected around the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries by King Jayavarman VII, the Khmer Empire‘s mightiest leader, who, my guidebook says, was known as the groom to this magnificent bride city. She is made of laterite, useful for building because it is both malleable and firm. The groom apparently was made of power and profound Buddhist spirituality. He showed sympathy for his subjects, though his peasant builders likely resented the decades of hard labor. Angkor Thom‘s central feature is the Bayon Temple, where my own King J. perches with enviable balance and I perch with caution and thinning patience. I slip the guidebook into my shoulder bag.

He is sweating. His favorite jeans cling to whatever they can find of his skinny, hairy legs. His navy tee shirt, pinned by his pack, sticks to the center of his back. His hair looks crafted of burnt yarn as it always does when wet. He runs ahead, leaping with long legs onto a short pillar so he can survey the weathered ruins and decide how to avoid other tourists on the climb to the temple‘s highest level. I wonder how he can cut through this early evening humidity.

I wait for him to tell me what to do next. The bags— shoulder, camera, and tote—press my bra straps into my sunned and sensitive shoulders. A tourist nearby ignores a cell phone call, the pop song clanging against the silent temple walls. I think, how stupid to choose such a song for incoming calls, how obnoxious to let the phone ring. But I chastise myself for being so negative here in this quiet place, as if my sourness rings aloud.

He makes his decision, mentally highlighting a route as if it were an Everest ascent, and hops back down from the pillar to retrieve the camera. ―Let‘s go!‖ He smiles, leans forward, rubs his hands together, turns on his heel, and trots to the base of the chosen staircase. I am familiar with this way of his. I have seen it on every trip we‘ve taken since we started dating ten years ago.

I follow him, again, always. He is quicker than I am at running up stairs, but much slower when taking steps forward. We travel like that. I compel him to change his mind. But he resists mental movement while jumping all around like a child or flea, climbing and jumping. He always moves, always has something to do. His bony knees bounce up and down, even without music. And just when he is ready to rest, I dash ahead. We are a halting couple, one of us perpetually waiting for the other, one of us inevitably dragging behind, never in sync. Our legs are such different lengths anyway, our footsteps terribly mismatched.

He scrambles up the stairs, which are not really stairs, but more like the sides of a mountain. They almost seem inverted. One theory holds that the civilization responsible for Angkor Thom believed the harder to get to a temple‘s apex, the better. Only the worthy few had the nerve and leg strength to climb. Now the Bayon is worn and rounded. Hundreds of thousands of tourists scale it each year. He climbs now, like a giant spider, right in front of me for a moment, then looking down at me from the top, arms up, fists clenched in victory pose.

Awkwardly I climb. My lips are pressed into an ―O‖ but I don‘t exhale. The skin behind my knees prickles with new hives. Reports on my anxiety churn out like a mental stock ticker: steps I have taken, steps I have to take, years I have waited, times I have almost left, seconds until I will sit on one stair, stuck, and see that he is ahead of me but behind me too, still monkeying around.

I make it, despite the panic. I hope my tears are indistinguishable from sweat droplets. He embraces me and says I did great, I‘m a champion, I climbed all the way up here. ―Good work, sweetie.‖ It is what we always say to each other. I press my cheek against his damp chest and feel comfort.

It is difficult to make out the real shape of the Bayon. The towers look like rock formations and the narrow courtyards offer the moodiness of a fantasy castle, especially in the approaching dusk. Each tower bears four jumbo faces, all the same, mouths turned up just enough to look serene rather than stern. The faces are, perhaps, of the Buddhist being Avalokitesvara, or perhaps of King Jayavarman, the royal smile carved repeatedly into the bride. Such devotion on both sides.

He has disappeared, undoubtedly to take photographs, his long body splayed on the floor, angling to shoot straight up, or at a particular slant through the columns. I imagine him tearing up a little as the amber light of sunset warms the cold gray stone. He often talks of traveling with his family, of traveling through history, of being a child. He wishes he could go back there, could tumble down the stairs to his youth. I am exhausted by the climb and terrified of falling.

He retrieves me. I follow him through an archway, over a pile of large square stones. We are inside the temple‘s top floor. I trust him but feel lost because I am not leading. When I go first, I talk so much he always knows where we