The View From Here

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issue 19

Malin Akerman in DISTRESS – Inside: The Lone Ranger comes to the rescue!

Cover image: Diego Cupolo Artwork: Fossfor Photographs for rear view poetry: Julian Povey The Magazine on-line: http://viewfromheremagazine.com SENIOR EDITOR: Mike French Managing Editors: Sydney Nash & Michael Kannengieser The Crew: Kathleen Maher, Paul Burman, Stella Carter, Naomi Gill, Jen Persson, Jane Turley, Grace Read, Diego Cupolo, Kerrie Anne, Charlie Wykes, Lori Andrews, Shanta Everington & Fossfor.

Copyright: The View From Here magazine 2010 2010-01-08 Published by BLAM Productions ions based in the UK email: info@viewfromheremagazine.com Painting of microphone used throughout: Fossfor Fiction & Poetry articles in this magazine: All people, places and events depicted therein are fictional and not meant to resemble any actual people, places, or events unless otherwise specified.

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Tom Chalmers Legend Press

Gary Davison interview nterview by Paul

interview by Sydney Nash

Some years ago (more than six, because it was before The Hiss Quarterly) I was perusing the net reading poetry. I don't recall where it was that I stumbled across Todd.

I read.

Then I read some more. And I continued to read. In fact, I read everything he had available on line and then I purchased his chap book. I sent it to him and told him to sign it because, "Dude, you're going to be famous." We began a correspondence based on what I believed to be some of the finest

word wizardry I'd had the good fortune to find in a very long time.

I am very angry at the person who five fingered my copy of Todd's latest book "Card Tricks for the Starving" at the California Orange County John Wayne airport in October. One minute it was there, and the next it was not.

I hope the thief is at least appreciative of good poetry. I hope that the thief pays it forward and gives the book to a friend who will then give it to another friend and the story will go something like

this, "So and so found *cough cough* this at some airport and it's terrific! Read this!"

Also, if you are the person who hijacked my copy, you can always redeem your soul at Amazon and send me one. You don't have to identify yourself as the stealer of words.

I caught up with Todd recently at a gallery opening in Chicago, plied him with the free booze then pulled him away from his adoring public to ask him a few questions.

He gazed at me through crossed

eyes and shook his head a few times, handed me his business card and told me to call his agent.

Not really.

The title of the book, Card Tricks for the Starving, suggests that poetry should do more than entertain, right?

I think I would be walking down a pretty dangerous path to state that poetry should aspire to do something. If I said something like that, a lot of really smart people would tell me I was wrong, and they would probably be right. Even if the world is broken, poetry doesn’t have much choice but to be poetry, otherwise it would be an essay or a sermon or something. I think the title is more a reminder to myself to try to be more meaningfully involved in the world.

Who is your Muse? May we borrow or rent her/him/them/it?

There was this great article written in the 1800s by a German philosopher named Strauss about how the ancient Greeks used mythological language to describe ordinary events. They might have said quite truthfully that pain was the daughter of fire, yet that same statement would not have been true to a rational mind of the 1800s because the two things bore no familial relationship. And yeah, sure, just give it back when you’re done with it.

Have you written something, crumpled it up and tossed it across the room, then rescued it and smoothed it out - - only to spill coffee/tea/Koolaid on it? (If so, did you write about that?)

In order: yes, sure, probably, maybe coffee, and definitely not.

Seriously, what is your writing process like? Do you edit your work?

I have the worst process of any poet I know. I only write when I have something pressing on me, and then it is very difficult for me to

say a poem is done. I think it usually takes me a couple of years to get a poem into its final shape. I write lots of rough drafts, and reread them often. Sometimes I find a better image or a more concise way to say something=and then sometimes the poem reveals itself over time to be about something entirely different than I had first thought, which is what happened with Saying Grace among the Rocks. And even after all that, I will sometimes overlook a typo for years. In any case, I think writers should try to write every day, even when they have nothing pressing down on them. Sometimes you can create words out of nothing at all.

over which style of poetics he prefers, so for now no I content myself to imagine a waitress, a punker, an accountant and a oneone legged nun all sitting around a table reading poems that they can relate to.

How does your daily life affect your writing, and vice versa?

Well, the poems in the book were written over ver the last 15 to 20 years, and I guess it is natural for one’s beliefs to change over time. I mean, I hope my 7th-grade 7th Sunday school teacher eventually got over the historicity of figures. It will suck if I am wrong, but I just don’t think that ark story stor would have been feasible. But I wrote some of the poems as honest questions, some as praise of goodness, some because I just didn’t feel like the story I was told resonated with my own spiritual needs, and then I wrote The Rapture because I am sort of afraid raid that we may get the God we want instead of the God who wants us. Humanity demands violence and punishment, and it would be a shame if there were a giant, cosmic ball of love and energy that ended up being just as emotionally wrecked as we are.

Being dead would probably prohibit my writing. In that sense my daily life has a profound effect on my writing. But actually, for some time when I was younger I had this idea that I wanted things I experienced to be poems and poems to be things I could experience. I thought that I could overcome the bifurcation between object and poem if I found the right words and those words were read by the right reader, but I have kind of accepted my limitations as a writer since then. Still, once a guy at a reading said my poems felt like being punched in the stomach, and I thought that was a pretty good compliment.

Your poems have been described as “accessible.” How do you feel about that?

The poems reflect a diverse palette of religious thought.

Poems like The Word, Saying Grace among the Rocks, Transubstantiation, and The Rapture address belief and disbelief head-on, on, and in many of your other poems religion seems to be swimming just below the surface. Sometimes they seem at odds with one another.

You write ite a lot about wreckage. [laughs] This interview is OVER! Uhm, I used to take that as a backhanded compliment. I learned around a lot of poets who wanted to be challenging, and I believe the thinking was that if just anyone could get it, it was not really worth sharing. But I was always afraid that I was turning my poems into obstacle courses=and it seemed counter-intuitive to do that. They will have their readers, and I will have mine=and I doubt anyone will ever get into a barroom brawl

Everything’s wreckage=and shifting states of seemingseeming permanence and loss and recovery. But that’s great, because every once in a while a pattern starts to emerge, or an image jumps out and attaches itself to a moment, or you get a glimpse of sense and order that almost feels transcendent.

Is that what Manic Prayer for Thursday is about?

That started out as a very small poem, and then I kept finding things I loved about my life--and that was kind of new territory for me--so I ran with it, and the title grew out of my self-consciousness about realizing that I was going on and on and on=and that being wrecked again and again had led me to this place where everything seems pretty good. Maybe it was a tip of the hat to Organized Innocence.

Is William Blake one of your influences?

I studied The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and his mythologies when I was an undergrad. Sometimes I would be up in my dorm room burning incense and candles and switching back and forth between William Blake and the Bible. I wanted to have those mystical experiences that he had. I could work myself into some pretty interesting mental spaces through prayer and meditation, but I never saw Jesus in a tree or anything.

My RA was a big old Jesus freak named Brad, and now that I look back on it, I bet he thought I was burning all that incense so I could get high in my room. But every once in a while I would have a spiritual epiphany, and I would really feel like I got it, you know, IT, and I would pray and pray and pray to die in that moment because I knew that I needed to die before I lost my grip on it.

Looking back, I realize that that was pretty weird, but I guess

questions are only rewarding if they’re hard.

How has your own writing been affected by the "rules" (whichever list you use), and by teachers, programs, seminars, etc?

Very much so. I have had some wonderfully patient instructors and friends who taught me a lot, and when I write I am in a sort of silent dialogue with them.

More fundamentally, it never would have even dawned on me to write a book of poetry if I had not ended up with the right teacher 20 years ago.

some last minute changes they were good to accommodate. I wanted the poem Again on page 89 for reasons sons that people who know me may guess, and then I added a last-minute minute epigraph for my friend David Gimelfarb who has been missing in Costa Rica for several months now. Everyone who reads this should go join the Help Find David Gimelfarb page on facebook. But yeah, Ghost Road is aces in my book.

How can we buy Card Tricks for the Starving?

Amazon is the best place to get it.

When did you start writing, and why?

I wrote my first short story when I was 10 or so because I wanted to make people laugh.

Best rumor about yourself?

What advice do you have for young writers?

Studying poetry is no substitute for life experience, and life experience is no substitute for studying poetry.

Give up sleeping, and don’t be afraid to fail.

I’m a librarian.

Where are the best and worst places you've ever been?

Here and there.

How was your experience with Ghost Road Press?

Great. They have published a lot of smart, innovative, and talented poets before me, so it was an honor to be chosen by them. Plus, they came up with the cover, which I love, which is of a young Joseph Grimaldi being hurled into an astonished crowd. Then, I had

Todd Heldt has published poetry and prose in dozens of journals, including Birmingham Poetry Review, Borderlands, Chattahoochee Review, Sycamore Review, and Laurel Review. In recent years, he won 2nd place in the 8th Annual Poetry Superhighway Poetry Contest, was a nominee for a Pushcart Prize, and was a finalist in the Cleveland State University first book competition.

When he's not feeding alligators at the Lincoln Park Zoo he's e's probably hanging out with his wife, Kelly, and flying kites.

The Importance of Writers’ Conferences or Why a Social Life Matters

by Susan Kennedy

In a small workshop two years ago, a fellow graduate student pointed to several sentences in a chapter of the novel I was struggling to write.

“Why so many questions?” he said. “Readers will be asking themselves this already, they don’t need the characters to do it. All of these questions distract from the story. But, then again, I could be biased.”

He wasn’t. Question marks that had before eluded my attention now jumped off the page as if they were typed in red. I deleted them.

Whether you’re a writer or appreciator (i.e. reader) or neither, you fight against or harbor the stereotypical image of a pale, shy, bespectacled bibliophile who likes to discuss the importance of word choice and gets worked up over where the commas belong in a sentence. Okay, maybe the image you have isn’t that extreme, but you get my point. Writers are introverts obsessed with words, quiet people who live quiet lives.

Maybe, but not alone.

No book springs complete and published from an ivory tower and no author is successful without

readers to provide feedback: friends, mentors, and fellow writers. Once a story or essay or poem is drafted, it needs to be tested on a trusted confidant who can offer suggestions and advice with gentle honesty.

Where, though, do you find readers?

In a group of fellow writers, of course. And where do writers hang out?

At writers’ conferences.

We writers find our trusted confidants in various places, in writers’ groups, at graduate school, in community writing classes. There is, though, no place to meet other writers like a writers’ conference.

Conferences bring together writers from many backgrounds interested in various genres who are writing at all levels for a day, or more, of classes, workshops, panel discussions, and presentations.

Conferences sometimes offer bonuses such as author signings and fiveminute pitch sessions with literary agents and editors.

Dozens of conferences large and small are offered every year.

Typing “writers’ conferences” into Google produces a list of 19,700,000 hits, and flipping through any writers’ magazine offers a taste of those with the largest advertising budgets.

Some conferences focus on specific genres, such as The Frost Place’s Conference on Poetry and Teaching, while others welcome writers toiling in all forms, such as the Cape Cod Writers Center summer conference, and almost are for both new and established wordsmiths. Where I live in southern New Hampshire, at least three are held each spring: Writers’ Day (run by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project), the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators New England Regional Conference, and the Seacoast Writers Association’s annual Spring Writers Conference.

During a brief discussion with a friend of a friend at Writers’ Day last spring, I received the feedback that I didn’t even know I needed. When he asked what I was working on, I told him about my novel manuscript, completed almost two years before and now languishing in my desk drawer. I didn’t tell him that even though I now had the time to work on it, I could not seem to summon up the enthusiasm I needed to drag it out and start the next draft.

“It’s a historical novel,” I said, “set in New England just before the American Revolution.

The protagonist is my ancestor.”

His eyes widened and a smile spread across his face. “That’s a great hook. Make sure you mention that when you pitch it to a publisher.”

I had spent so much time thinking about the story and characters that I had forgotten about its originality. At home after the conference, I found a pen and started the next draft.

Writing is a difficult but interesting, satisfying vocation or avocation. Whether the author of a blog or book, journalist or novelist, poet or playwright, no one needs to face the writing life without a community. Conferences open doors for writers to grow, learn, and connect with each other, all the ingredients for a great social life.

Susan E. Kennedy is a fiction writer and freelance copyeditor. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction and Nonfiction from Southern New Hampshire University and is a member of the Amoskeag literary journal’s editorial board. Her essays and short stories have appeared in several New England publications, and she is currently at work on two novels. She can be reached at skennedy09@yahoo.com.

Photo credit: byrne7214

Celebs in Writing Distress:

Malin Akerman

Dear The Lone Ranger Can you help me? No one else will take me seriously. Since I've started writing my first novel my head keeps buzzing with ideas around 3 AM in the morning. Normally at this time I'm suiting up to go to work to fight crime and such stuff, but I just can't concentrate.

Several times I've had to give up and find an all night cafe to scribble down my thoughts.

Frankly it's driving me to distraction and I don't know how longer I can keep going. I'd like to give up crime fighting but it pays the bills and writing - well it ain't exactly paved with gold. your Malin Dear Malin You are not alone in struggling to balance a writing life with a career. My advice would be to write in the winter months when it's a bit cold out there on the streets and fight crime in the summer months. As for giving up completely, it's only a lucky few writers that are able to write full time, so I'd stick with it I'm available Tuesday evenings when Tonto is washing his hair, if you want some company out there.

Say hi to Nighthawk for me.

Yours The Lone Ranger

Ellie Is Here 2

by W. Jack Savage

cheated which led to her getting involved with an old college friend in nearby Birmingham.

She seemed embarrassed chatting about that as well. So we just sort of propped each other up from time to time. After a while we communicated by letter. She sent me a birthday card, and I responded with a thank-you note. I never thought much about our exchanging addresses. Then, after nearly a year of chatting with her at least three times a week, she disappeared.

I thought about writing, but with her gone I thought maybe her husband might get the letter.

I was worried about her though and finally went online and checked the Sylacauga Newspaper, fearing that she might have gotten in an accident or something. I hadn’t heard from her in ten days, and as I scrolled down the death notices I remember sighing with relief when I didn’t see her name. I was about to give up when I saw a little notice in the funeral section.

I never met her. We spoke in a chat room following the breakup of my third marriage. Her chat room nickname was Ellieishere2. The “is here too” part caught my eye somehow. It was like she was announcing that she existed, as if maybe she’d been dismissed in her real world. My instinct was right.

I said hello one day, and we began a chat room acquaintance

which led to a friendship. We spoke to each other on Messenger and emailed each other now and then.

We were both in need. I was depressed from another failed marriage, and she had problems in her marriage, too. She was a housewife in Sylacauga, Alabama with kids in their early teens. She never got too specific about her trouble at home. Her husband had

“In lieu of flowers, Bobby Harris and the Harris family have requested that donations to the University of AlabamaBirmingham Hospital Depression Center be made in the name of Ellie Sue Harris.”

That was it. No death notice and no visitation and no other

funeral announcement for the previous ten days in the paper.

I felt awful. Here was a woman who had become my good Internet friend, and she had died under

and even upbeat right up until the time she disappeared. I asked if someone could please respond and tell me at least what happened. But no one wrote back.

After twenty minutes of trying to

pick the lock with a paper clip, I gave up and cut the strap circumstances somehow not worthy of a death notice. So I got terribly drunk and vowed to find out what happened. After a few days, I let it go. The family was suffering enough I reasoned, and after sending a hundred bucks in Ellie’s name to the UAB Depression center, I sadly went about the business of getting on with my own life. It may well have ended there, but for the night I sat staring at her name on the computer screen. In fact it was the moment that I was thinking about deleting her from Messenger when she came online.

“Hello, hello,” I typed. There was no reply.

“Ellie, are you there?” I typed again. “Are you alright?”

“Who are you?” was the response I saw, and I knew at once that Ellie was truly dead and that probably her family was investigating Ellie’s Internet life.

“I’m an Internet friend of Ellie’s,” I wrote. “My name is Gary, and I live in California.” There was a long pause.

“I’m sorry,” I began again, “but when Ellie hadn’t come on for ten days, I looked for word about her in your local newspaper there. Can you tell me if it’s true? Is Ellie dead?”

“Your party cannot answer because they appear to be offline” was the usual heading in response to my last question. Whoever it was had gone offline.

I kept Messenger open all night and stayed up until after midnight, hoping they would come back online.

Finally, I sent an email saying I respected their wishes for privacy at a difficult time but that Ellie and I were good Internet friends, and she helped me cope after my divorce. I also said that while Ellie seemed to have had some problems around the time we had met—problems she never shared—she had seemed fine

The next two days I sent emails again, but the result was the same. I kept Ellie’s name in my Messenger in hopes someone would come on again. Three days later I got a letter.

Dear Gary, My name is Carolyn Harris, and I am Ellie Sue’s daughter. I found your address on a thank-you note in her box of personal items. I’m hoping you’re the Gary who was on Mom’s Messenger. She talked about you sometimes. I guess you know Mom died. It’s been very hard for us since then, and I cry a lot. They say Mom was depressed and that she killed herself with a gun, but I don’t believe it. Mom got depressed sometimes, but lately, she had been a lot happier. They say that one day I’ll understand how depression works.

All I know is that while Mom was going to school at UAB, she’d come home depressed sometimes. After she dropped out she was a lot better.

Anyway, Mom is gone now, and I’m glad you were her friend. I’m sending you her journal because everyone around here is trying to pretend she never lived, and I don’t want them to find it and throw it away, too. I took it and hid it in my bed when they were going through her things. I couldn’t find the key. I loved my mom very much, and I want a friend to have something to remember her by. I didn’t have enough for first-class postage, but they said third class would just take longer. They deleted everything of hers out of the computer. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you that night on Messenger. But I thought I might get into trouble.

Yours Truly, Carolyn Harris

How terribly sad I felt when I read the letter. It didn’t get any better the third or fourth time either. One thing did seem odd though. Ellie had said she was thinking of taking some classes at UAB the previous fall. I remember encouraging her, but later she said it hadn’t worked out and that she never enrolled. Her daughter seemed to suggest that her dropping out had been a recent development. Now, in the spring, I wondered why she hadn’t told me she was going to school, unless she wasn’t attending but just getting away for a day now and then. And what the daughter had written about Ellie’s recent mood was the same thing I had noticed. She had seemed happier than ever.

The days before the journal arrived had gotten long for me again, and when it came, I tore it open like a kid with a present. After twenty minutes of trying to pick the lock with a paper clip, I gave up and cut the strap holding it together. As I paged through the early entries, I noticed that Ellie didn’t write every day. Once or twice a week, she’d reflect on one thing or another. It went back two years, and she began the entries shortly after she found a love letter in her husband’s pocket from his secretary. She seemed so conflicted about what had happened. She admitted that the honeymoon had long been over, but when she confronted her husband Bobby with the note, he became violently defensive. He accused her of spying on him and left that night and never returned home. She drove out to the apartment complex where his secretary lived and saw his truck there in the morning. But she was scared of losing her home and decided in her own interest and that of her children that she’d try to get through it.

There were other entries. She wrote of finding me on the Internet. I cried when I read how much I had meant to her and what a “rock” I had become in her life. It was nearly two in the morning when I put it down and undressed for bed. I took the journal to bed with me and marked the place that I had stopped reading.

I felt I needed to page ahead before sleep and found her last entry. This is what it said:

Dear Journal: I have finally taken the bull by the horns, and by tomorrow my ordeal and the ordeal of other women like myself will be over. I am meeting with U.S Attorney John Barnes and will give him a deposition and the other evidence that will prevent this from happening to any other woman in the future. Maybe I should feel scared, but what I’m really feeling is exhilaration that I haven’t felt in years. I know I’ve made mistakes; however, doing this is not only the right thing to do, I feel it’s the only thing to do. And that makes me feel great!

I went to sleep that night knowing the Ellie Sue Harris I knew did not take her own life. Someone took it for her.

The next day I read the rest of the journal. Ellie and many other women in and around the Birmingham, Alabama area had been the victims of a fairly elaborate ruse. It began with choosing attractive women who were housewives and mothers, seducing them and taping the event without their knowledge. But then two men posing as government agents would approach the victims. They would show them the tapes and say that they’d been investigating their lovers who, over time, would have threatened to reveal the tapes to their husbands to make them perform sexual favors with others for money. They’d tell the victims that they were lucky they caught this in time, or they would have had no choice but to name them in their investigations.

Then the other shoe would drop.

As a condition for keeping their names out of all this unpleasantness, the victims would have to perform certain duties over a probationary period until their investigation was completed. If they refused, their names and the tapes would come out in the indictment. If they consented, they simply had to=well=fuck whoever they told them to for a period of months, usually six. And while this seems ridiculous, both on the surface and at the heart of it, what real choice did the victims have? They’d lose their homes and their children in the

subsequent divorce, and while they might have explained their way out of it if only their husbands found out, a televised scandal with indictments must have seemed overwhelming.

Besides, they had already cheated on their husbands. Why not simply do it with many lovers for the period and be done with it. And even if they figured out what was going on, the penalties for not agreeing were just as severe.

For the perpetrators, the advantages of using housewives under duress were many. To begin with, they weren’t prostitutes. They were clean, well mannered, and attractive; they had no choice but to

of these events was at least possible. The final problem was that no one and I mean no one—whether victim or perpetrator—would want these matters to come to light. That presented a solution that happened to fall right in my wheelhouse.

As my plane landed in Atlanta, my notes seemed adequate to the occasion. I knew, of course, there’d be plenty of improvisation but that presented no problem. I rented a car and headed to Sylacauga. I found a florist and by mid-afternoon placed my flowers on the grave of my friend.

As I did, I felt someone looking at me. I turned around and saw a

she admitted as much to the old college chum she favored with a roll in the hay after running into him at a mall one day simply make lemonade out of lemons. For her part, Ellie had not only been afraid of losing her home when she found out her husband was cheating; she admitted as much to the old college chum she favored with a roll in the hay after running into him at a mall one day. However, Ellie figured it out pretty quick, and the guys posing as government agents went as far as to suggest she begin by thanking them personally and sexually at their initial meeting which she did.

As I read on I became saddened on many levels, not the least of which was how her souring marriage mirrored at least two of my own in some ways. But my sadness quickly and frequently gave way to the kind of rage I hadn’t known in many years. Even so, the diabolical nature of this scam and, in particular, the kind of language and legalese with which these people presented themselves made me feel whoever was running this thing wasn’t stupid.

Ellie’s death was proof enough of their ruthlessness. But the most disquieting factor was the fact that, whoever did this, knew she was going to see a real U.S. Attorney.

They faked her suicide before she got there. The likelihood that real government officials had knowledge

young girl of thirteen or so. I knew immediately who she was. She joined me at the grave.

“Did you know my mom?” she asked.

“Yes” I said. “We were friends on the Internet.”

“I knew it was you,” she exclaimed. “I had a feeling it was.”

“You have good instincts, Caroline,” I said looking back at Ellie’s grave. We stood there silently for a minute or two. I could feel her stealing looks at me every few seconds.

“My Mom didn’t kill herself, did she?”

“No Caroline, she didn’t. You were right about that, too. But everyone will assume she did and your knowing the truth won’t change what they think. Do you think you can be satisfied with that?”

She was quiet for a moment. “I guess so,” she said. “Do you know who killed her?”

“No,” I said. “We’ll see.”

I said goodbye to my friend’s daughter and drove to Birmingham. I checked into the Birmingham Marriott where Ellie had met all of her men; I tipped the bellman $40.00 and asked if he could tell me where a gentleman might meet a suitable and clean lady for the evening.

“I think that could be worked out, sir,” he said. “Will you be dining at our fine restaurant this evening sir?”

“Unless you can recommend someplace better, I will be.”

“No, sir,” he said politely. “I think our restaurant is excellent. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. May I ask if you have any specific preference in a lady sir: blonde, brunette, redhead?”

“Apart from her being attractive and amiable,” I began, “none at all.

Let me add that she has to be clean—no one who walks the street if you know what I mean.”

“I can assure you, sir, the fellow I’ll refer you to would never use such women,” he said.

“I see=but I was hoping to deal just with you young man. The need for discretion is of great importance to me as I’m sure you can understand.”

“I certainly understand, sir; the man I’m talking about is a frequent visitor to the lounge in our fine restaurant. Believe me, he is very discreet.”

“How will I know this man?” I asked.

“He’ll find you sir,” he said. “Enjoy a cocktail before dinner. Will there be anything else, sir?”

I smiled and shook my head.

After he left, I showered quickly and dressed for dinner. It was going pretty much as I supposed.

In the lounge I noticed the restaurant was indeed popular and three quarters full by seven-thirty. I sat down and ordered a scotch on the rocks. Before the drink arrived, I saw them.

She was about thirty with a homespun sort of look about her. I imagined she made wonderful Sunday dinners. She looked as though she probably did volunteer work wherever she lived. He was short and stocky and had the look of

then came over. He introduced himself and the lady, asking if I might like to join them at a table.

“So Mr. Fox,” he began, “What brings you to Birmingham?”

“Business, of course,” I answered. “I’ll be looking at some properties around town for possible development. I was told someone would meet me here in the lounge tonight. Is that you, Mr. Brown?”

“Yes it is.”

“Then, if you don’t mind,” I said, “I’d prefer we discuss that business.”

At this, Kathy, after being introduced, excused herself to the ladies room. After sitting back down, he began again.

“How long will you need Kathy tonight?” he asked.

“Probably no later than ten thirty, I’m thinking, and I’d prefer if she could join me for dinner here as well.”

“I’m sure she’d like that,” he said.

“I can arrange the charges to be spread out over your hotel bill if you like. I understand you’ll be with us for three days.”

“Yes,” I said, “but there’s no need for the subterfuge.

I’m an independent contractor, Mr. Brown.

No need to fool anyone about expenses. You do take credit cards?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think $300.00 should cover everything.”

“That’s fine provided she’s clean.” I said.

“I can assure you that she is.”

After concluding our business in the lounge, Kathy and I went in for dinner. I noticed a white band on her finger where her wedding band had been. We had a nice dinner and talked about the area a little. She was candid about being married and spoke of a daughter in junior high school. Afterwards we went up to my room where I made a phone call.

May I ask if you have

any specific preference in a lady sir: blonde, brunette, redhead?” a top ten salesman. They saw me, but ambled toward the middle of the bar just the same. He exchanged some words with the bartender and

After hanging up, I told Kathy that something had come up and that I wouldn’t be needing her after all. As she was leaving, I stopped her.

“He’ll...Mr. Brown will be down there won’t he?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll credit you. I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“No,” I said. “I mean, he may send you to another...client.”

She looked down. “Maybe.”

“I don’t want to put you out that way. Why don’t you stay here for a while and watch television? I would like the company while I work and that way you can go home afterward.”

She smiled sadly and said, “Thank you.”

“No problem; I enjoy your company. Why don’t you order us some tea?”

I sat at the table with my laptop and made some notes regarding the initial meeting. After our tea arrived, I outlined a series of questions I wanted to ask her. It had to do with a hunch I had about the initial motel where Ellie Sue and her old college chum had gone.

“Tell me Kathy,” I said. “You know the area and I don’t. Do you know much about the northeast part of town? There is a restaurant and motel complex near where I’m looking for development properties. I believe the motel is called the Outer Limits.”

Her face told me my instinct was correct. “Yes, it’s not a very nice part of town. Not dangerous or anything but kind of run down.”

“Good,” I said. “And how near the juncture of these two freeways would you say it is?”

She came over and looked at the map.

“I’d say less than a mile for either one.”

I took off my glasses and looked at her. “I’m not sure if Mr. Brown will question you about this evening, Kathy, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention the areas I’m looking at.”

“No, I’d never do that.”

I got around to asking her about the second area nearly an hour later, and as I suspected, she was familiar with it, also. They used the Outer Limits Motel for the taping. Then they’d send the ladies downtown to an old Federal Building, only partially filled with new private renters. There, someone posing as a judge would

inform them in official tones of how they were going to “get themselves out of this mess.”

Nearing ten thirty, I’d got to the point in the questioning that would most closely resemble normal curiosity, and Kathy had warmed to me in ways I felt she could answer my questions in a candid manner.

She told me the men she dealt with amounted to only four altogether and

family. One day a week is all I’ve been able to handle.”

“Yes, of course, but if your Mr. Brown was amenable to ending your obligation early, would you at least consider it?”

She agreed and, after meeting with Brown the next morning, he was encouraging as well. He offered her for $800.00 a day which I got down to $700.00 after telling him there’d

“I like only one girl at a time,” I told him.

“I’d want someone else in the future.” there was also one woman. Two men posing as U. S. Attorneys, this fake judge and his secretary, and Mr. Brown seemed to be all there were.

But she’d never seen more then two of them together at once. As to any other women she knew of in the same circumstance, she had only met one. It was clear, however, that they didn’t let any of the women interact with each other in an unsupervised manner. This made perfect sense, of course, but also made my job a little harder.

“Tell me something, Kathy,” I said, “These officials you speak of— is there anyway you can contact them?”

“Only through Adam, that is Mr. Brown, and Judge Henry downtown.”

“I see. Did you ever see the judge again?”

“Not yet; next month my probationary period is over. I have to see him then. Please don’t tell Adam that I told you anything about this.”

I shook my head and got up.

“Kathy, believe me that knowledge of any of this could put me in danger, too, I’m sure. I would never betray your confidence. In fact, I have an idea that might interest you. This would be for my protection as well, but I was wondering about something. Is there anyway I could hire you for the next three days and end your obligation earlier? You said next month you would be done with this, and I assume at one day a week that would bring you closer.”

“I could ask,” she said, “but I don’t think I could explain it to my

be future visits to Birmingham. He “assured me” she would be amenable.

“I like only one girl at a time,” I told him. “I’d want someone else in the future.”

“That works out perfectly,” he said, leading me to believe they might actually let these women off after their obligation was done. We stood up and shook hands.

“You provide a fine service, Mr. Brown. I’ll be sure to recommend this...hotel to others.”

He agreed to meet me with Kathy for dinner that evening. I left with my briefcase around ten and headed downtown.

After spending the morning getting the cook’s tour of the old Federal building from a representative from the investment company holding the lease, I stopped for lunch. I had noticed a door with Judge Henry’s name still on it. He explained the new renters only used the office now and then and hadn’t bothered to change the name. But, as we were leaving, I noticed some movement behind the frosted glass. After lunch I went back and talked to a couple of tenants. I tried the door at Judge Henry’s office, but it was locked. After knocking, a middle-aged woman with glasses answered.

“Hi,” I said. “Some people I’m working with are interested in the building. I always make it a point to talk with some of the renters. Would you have a moment for me?”

After trying to put me off with talk of only using the office to receive mail and some storage, she finally let me in. The outer office seemed normal enough for a Judge. At first glance, nothing would give the impression it was not Judge Henry’s Office.

“Oh, I must have misunderstood,” I said. “Doesn’t the judge doesn’t keep an office here?”

Just then a heavyset man with red hair walked in. He exchanged looks with the secretary who was beginning to look uneasy.

Twenty minutes later I left the office, turning the lights out and locking the door on my way out.

I put the bag in the trunk of my car and headed for the Outer Limits Motel.

“Hi, it’s me Terry at the motel,” he said in almost a whisper. “I think you’d better get over here right away. Some developer is looking at buying the place, and the owner is taking him on a tour of the rooms. I told him yours was under repair, but I think they’ll want to see it anyway. I can stall them for a while, but the owner has a master key.”

After hanging up I said, “That was very good Terry. Are they coming together or will there be only one?”

“They always come together, but I don’t know for sure.”

“Fine,” I said. “Here’s the first five hundred. You’ll get the rest after I’ve met with them.”

As I heard the key turn in the door, I listened for footsteps. They were both there. Ten minutes later I came out, locked the door, and went back down to the office.

“Here’s the rest of your money, Terry,” I said handing him $1000.00.

“I’d wait at least two days if I were you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help, and I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that, in any case, I won’t forget this...or you.”

Terry shook his head as he fingered the money. “No=no problem,” he said nervously. “Not a problem.”

Nearing seven o’clock, I saw Brown and Kathy walk in the front door. He looked confident as ever, and I felt sure none of the day’s events had come to his attention. I cut them off on the way to the lounge

“Complete name, please.”

“Tom Scarborough=.

Oh, God please... Oh, God.” and asked if I could speak with him privately. I gave Kathy the key to my room, saying I’d prefer we eat there later. On the way to the parking lot, I told him my travels took me to an interesting property north of town and wondered if he had a few minutes to take a look at it with me.

He agreed and I headed to a largely vacant industrial area I had seen.

We got out and I began by talking about the property.

“You see, my people are looking for undervalued areas not unlike this one,” I said, “with good access to the main artery highways.”

He nodded and looked around.

As he did, I shot him in the knee. He screamed and rolled around in pain.

“Your partners are dead,” I said and shot him again in the ankle.

“You’re gonna be dead in minute, too. But I thought you’d like to know why you’re all dying. Remember Ellie Sue Harris? She was a friend of mine. I’m afraid all I can offer you is a shorter death then you deserve, but one last thing remains. And if you don’t tell me...right now, I’ll kill you all night, and believe me, it won’t be fun.”

I squatted down near him as he writhed in pain.

“Who told you Ellie was coming to Birmingham to give a deposition?”

I asked.

He writhed some more and shook his head. I shot him in the elbow, and he screamed again.

“Last chance, pal, because I’m not asking after this. Who told you Ellie was coming to town to give a deposition?”

“Oh, God,” he choked. “I=it was my brother. He works in the U.S. attorney’s office.”

“His name?”

“He didn’t know anything about it,” he screamed. “He just told me things.”

“Deadly things, as it turns out.

Last chance for a name and an end to this Brown. His name?”

“Tom,” he said.

I shot him in his other elbow.

“Complete name, please.”

“Tom Scarborough=.Oh, God please... Oh, God.” I stood up and put two in his stomach and walked away. On the way back to the hotel I disposed of the tapes I’d taken from the old federal building.

Back in my room, I sent Kathy home to her family saying I was quite sure she’d never need to do this sort of thing again. She kissed me in a way that told me she was grateful and with a passion that indicated she might indeed do this sort of thing again. That couldn’t be helped, of course.

The next morning I watched Tom Scarborough kiss his wife goodbye at the front door and secure his small son in the child safety seat of his Bronco before driving off. I decided to let it go.

As I was checking out of the Marriott, I saw the bellman who had referred my prey. I tipped him another $40.00 and thanked him for his help.

“It was a pleasure, sir,” he said with a smile. “I hope everything was satisfactory.”

I nodded and said, “You’ve been a help to me young man, and I’d like to tell you something that might help you. In a day or so the police will want to interview you. If you have any reason why you wouldn’t want that, it might be better if you weren’t here or at the address you gave the hotel.”

He understood and nodded quickly.

Forty-five minutes later, I stood before Ellie’s grave once again. After a few minutes I saw Caroline walking down the path toward me. She carried schoolbooks in her arms. We were silent for a few minutes. She stole looks at me from time to time and seemed to be forming a question. But she never quite got it worked out.

“I don’t think your mother would like it that you come here every day,” I said.

“I won’t now.”

We stood there for a while longer, and I felt her take my hand.

“Thank you, Gary.”

“You’re welcome Carolyn,” I answered.

She started to walk off and then stopped and turned ten feet away.

“Did you kill them?” she asked.

I turned and looked at her evenly.

“Yes,” I said.

She walked back to me and handed me an envelope. It was my thank you note to Ellie with my return address on it.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Goodbye.” I smiled and waved as she walked off.

I drove back to Atlanta to catch my flight. That fact is I don’t have many friends. Ellie Sue Harris was my friend and avenging her murder was an act of personal satisfaction.

I’ve been in this business for nearly thirty years. I had never killed for pleasure before, only business.

Caroline’s heartfelt gratitude put this whole episode back on the business side of the ledger to some degree. I smiled to think of it.

about the author Walter “Jack” Savage quit high school and spent two and a half years in Vietnam as a paratrooper and helicopter doorgunner, all before his twenty-first birthday. A life long fan of short stories, Jack began writing his own fifteen years ago while pursuing his graduate degree in film studies. He published a collection of his twelve best entitled, Bumping and Other Stories last year.

Jack is a graduate of Brown Institute and Mankato State University in Minnesota and is a career broadcaster currently heard on 790KABC Radio in Los Angeles. He is also a veteran stage actor and Associate Professor in Telecommunications and Film at California State University, Los Angeles. Jack and his wife Kathy live in Monrovia, California. http://www.wjacksavage.com Photo Credit: Julian Povey

Fiona Robyn interview by Kerrie-Anne

I'm trying to decide whether or not I I

I want to carry on living. I'm giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don't think I'm alone in wondering whether it's all worth it. Thaw by Fiona Robyn

From this moment I was captivated.

My first thoughts, "oh what have I gotten myself into" disappeared by the end of page one and by the end of the second I was hooked.

Thaw chronicles the life of Ruth.

A thirty-two-year single woman living in London, wondering if it's worth living. From everyday meanderings, to thoughtful contemplations, Thaw is an open, honest and frank account of a woman's struggle with circumstances which can and often do effect each one of us at one time or another throughout our lives.

Far from being depressing, Thaw is a remarkably uplifting story.

Written in a diarised style, it allows the reader to watch as Ruth's life takes on its unwitting journey, moving in directions not even Ruth could imagine as she attempts to reconcile with estranged relatives, casual friends. As she develops relationships, she learns not all is what is seems in the perfect lives of those around her.

I came, I saw, I conquered! Aptly describes what should be Ruth's motto in life. A thoroughly enjoyable journey for all.

Fiona welcome to The View From Here.

As I researched you for this interview I found the same thing, ‘Fiona Robyn is a writer and blogger living in Hampshire with her partner, cats and vegetable patch.’ There is not much more about Fiona the Person. So can you tell us a little about who is Fiona Robyn?

Hmm. Where to start with that question? I could write a list of things-that-I-am – therapist, sister, friend, gardener – or I could tell you what I’m interested in – Buddhism, words, cats, chocolate. But the best way to get to know me is probably to read my novels.

How important is it to keep your Author and person separate?

I do feel that some things are appropriate to write on my blog or in my books, and some things aren’t. In that way I keep some of my ‘person’ secret. But in other ways it would be very difficult to separate us.

As I look around the web I see your writing everywhere Facebook, A Small Stone, Fionarobyn.com, and one of my favourite Planting Words just to name a few. What is it that motivates you too write?

I write to help myself pay attention to the world, to help me engage with the world.

When did you first know you were a writer?

I knew I was a reader before I knew I was a writer. I used to copy quotes into a notebook, and I loved the power of stories. I started writing poetry when I was in my early twenties, and then nothing could stop me.

How important is research when writing?

My personal view is that the authenticity of the characters, the shape of the story and the quality of the writing are more important than the research, but it’s important not to make any glaring errors which would

distract the educated reader. I like broad research (e.g. finding out more about gardeners) rs) but I’m not very good with detail. I find it a bit boring.

This novel is captivating. How did you come across Ruth?

Thank you. Ruth was the first character to appear in my head – I wrote Thaw before the other novels.

She just turned up one day and asked ked me to write her story.

So much of Ruth's story touched me. I took away the sense that bad things happen to good people, that we all have ghosts but it's how we deal with them that matters.

That to me was something truly inspiring. It brought you in to Ruth and her circle. It also gives the reader closeness to her. How did you approach writing Ruth’s character with such honesty?

I’m glad you thought so. I think different people might have different ‘readings’ of the book, but we’ll see.

Ruth is fictional, but I believe that we all have the capacity to be anything/anyone, and I hope I’ve tapped into those parts of my personality that KNOW what it’s like to be her.

The emotional roller coaster Ruth takes us on gives the reader plenty to think about. abou Where did you look for inspiration and insight into her?

I read a lot about suicide and selfself harm, but mostly I looked inside myself. I don’t have personal experience of these issues, but I can imagine how someone might get to a place where they would seem like valid options.

Writing as a diarised novel must have its mountains to climb. How different was it to write as opposed to a straight through story?

write and where do you look for them?

I’m a pretty intuitive writer, so I just sat down and wrote a first draft without trying to think about the structure, characterisation etc. It’s only when I do later drafts that I start to fiddle about with the structure and polish up the sentences.

What do you hope readers of Thaw take away from it?

What was the biggest change in Ruth’s life with the greatest effect on her attitude?

How have you found the reaction to Thaw since its recent release?

That’s surprising! All my characters appear from the ether=

I hope my readers will understand what it is like to be Ruth, and that it will help them to ask themselves questions about their own lives.

I would say that Red, her portrait painter, is the crucial element to her transformation, but the reader will have to decide!

The paperback isn’t out until February 2010, so not many people have read it yet. The people who have read it seem to say it affects them deeply, which is a wonderful thing for a writer to hear.

My favourite character next to Ruth would have to have been Julie. Which was the hardest to

How do you approach writing?

I see writing as a ‘way of being’ – it’s about documenting the world, and making sense of it and myself.

What is the most important attribute for a writer/author to have?

Perseverance is essential if you want to have a career and be published, but the only requirement to be a writer is a love of words.

What advice can you give anyone embarking on a career as an author?

Don’t give up. Get lots of support.

And try to enjoy the process. If you’re meant to be a writer, the stories will ill nag at you until you write them down.

Thanks Fiona.

I write to help myself

pay attention to the world, to help me engage engage.

Ghosts of the past shake up the future

As I see it (or rather read it), that is what Paul Torday has achieved here. This neat and welcoming novel has the feel of tales told before; where characters are troubled by ghosts of the past that come shake up the future. And ‘ghosts’ is no idle metaphor; we are in supernatural territory with this novel. Not I should stress the gross out horror of James Herbert or the fantasy worlds of Clive Barker. Rather it is the gentler, more grounded tradition of Doyle’s Hound or James’ Wailing Well that came to mind.

I stopped for a moment, wondering what had alarmed me. I looked uphill, expecting perhaps to see a fox staring down at me, or a buzzard wheeling above me in the sky. The sensation of being watched was now so powerful that I could scarcely prevent myself from breaking into a run. A prickle of sweat broke out on my forehead. All of a sudden, I was seized by a feeling of horror, as if something from outside had come into the world.

Stephen King has suggested there are key archetypes that underpin supernatural fiction; the ghost, the creature without a name, the vampire and the

ghosts is no idle metaphor;

we are in supernatural territory with this novel

The Girl on the Landing

by Paul Torday Publisher: Orion Books Review: Charlie We humans like stories. We’ve told them round camp fires before we could write them down and since then we’ve read them to ourselves and our children and so they have evolved and multiplied. On occasion we revisit and rework them updating for new ages and new generations.

werewolf. I think two of those come into play in this novel but I’ll not tell you which as that would be too much of a spoiler. Instead let me set the scene. Michael and Elizabeth have a dull marriage because Michael is a dull, socially distant man, happiest in his crumbling family pile in Scotland. When not there he holds down a job of little importance at the minor Gentleman’s Club he frequents in London. Elizabeth has her own reasons for staying with Michael; it seems she does not believe she has the right to ask for much more in life and whilst not contented, she is resigned. It is not long however before things begin to change. Michael sees, or thinks he sees, a figure in a painting and from there on he begins to alter. Elizabeth is surprised, pleased and concerned by the new Michael who is both more alive and more troubled. As disturbing events multiply, so Elizabeth learns more of Michael’s childhood and what this will mean for their new relationship.

Michael and Elizabeth both tell their interwoven story in the first person, a device that allows us to know them intimately and sympathetically. Personally I preferred Michael as narrator, it is with him that we are closest to the heart of the story and for me the story is central here.

Whilst it is a contemporary reworking of themes mentioned above, Michael seems only partly connected to the modern world; he eschews mobile phones, travels by train and inhabits a club with values and customs from the days of Empire. This creates and maintains the link back to tales already told. Similar themes concerning past influences can also be found in Elizabeth’s relationship with her mother, in Michael’s past life in Scotland and his developing views on the ancestry of the British peoples. This multi-layered approach is handled

by Torday with a deft touch, never weighing down what is an enjoyable read yet adding an extra dimension to keep the discerning reader engaged. If I have a criticism it might be that the ending comes a little quickly after a measured build-up but this is a minor quibble as overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Layers of haunting from the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife

Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd Review: Grace Looking back on it now, the haunting in this novel starts from the first chapter title and the very first sentences.

And the haunting pervades everything else from this point onwards.

The layers of haunting are woven together, from the subtle to the obvious, becoming increasingly complex (but fascinating) as the novel progresses. Here are some examples of the layers of haunting: There is the actual haunting of the deceased characters to the living characters, which is not in the slightest bit scary. It is gentle and emotional, and full of funny and frustrating insights into what an afterlife without a body, voice or power may be like.

There is the omniscient narration, which floats seamlessly between characters, expertly conveying each one's passions, fears, desires and dreams.

There is the threat of history repeating itself. The characters are living in the consequences of, or are haunted by, decisions made in the past and/or past events. They are living in shadows and are trying to shake them off. Equally, the characters are haunted by memories, and these memories either inspire action and change, or they inhibit the ability for the character to fully embrace life. The past seems to have an invisible, ghostly hold over the present.

The characters are haunted by death – the death of friends; death of a relationships; death of pets. The way the characters respond to these deaths (the way they grieve) provides the reader with an insightful exploration of human behaviour; inexplicable and unique.

Some of the characters also haunt each other by obsessing over each other and stalking each other. This layer of haunting is creepier than the actual haunting!

The novel's setting, Highgate Cemetery, which, although a clichéd setting for a ghost story, is described with such beauty and detail that it almost becomes its own character – an unavoidable presence.

Niffenegger's haunting narration tugged, squeezed and wrenched my heart strings from the very first page.

The narration evoked real feelings of pain, longing, revulsion, distress and laughter.

Niffenegger has chosen a wonderfully odd combination of about 10 characters who develop even

a disturbing macabre spectacle of deceit and murder

odder relationships with each other. Although Niffenegger gives the reader access to each character's words and thoughts, I was not fully convinced behind some of their actions. For example, why would a 21 year old American girl feel compelled to kiss a middle-aged, married, obsessive/compulsive recluse?

I'm not sure I could believe some of the nuances in the relationships between the characters, but this does not detract from the enjoyment of reading the novel. In fact, it added a quirk. It added the reality of unpredictable, illogical human behaviour. The actions of the characters made me feel sick at times, so rather than ascribing this to Niffenegger's weak creation of convincing relationships, I instead would ascribe the 'sick feeling' to Niffenegger's incredible ability to shock the reader.

The novel takes many turns into the unexpected, pushing the boundaries of acceptability (and believability), until a gentle tale of American twins moving to London becomes a disturbing macabre spectacle of deceit and murder. At points when I decided that 'this plot is too ridiculous and unbelievable', I rationed with myself that this is a ghost story and so by nature is not intended to be believable. And yet I was still shocked and horrified by the bizarre ending.

Her fearful Symmetry is a thrill to read. Niffenegger creates tension and suspense that make the pages turn themselves.

The "Spirit" I.

Gutting the Fish Every now and then, I hear voices. They tell me Exactly what I want to hear: a woman in a red dress walking Through ankle deep grass, a man changing Hub caps. It’s that familiar collision of sheer joy, rusted Metal’s got me worried. I mean—if the entire Thing is captured on camera, full color. I can make out A stooped balding man. He’s counting His money. My money. As if it is an explanation To say the rain will stop. The animals might inch closer To the ship. Between my thumb and my index finger, They resemble a string of beans. One foot of that woman is Visible. She wears high heels, clumps of grass are stuck To black leather. Should I tell her? And then the moment Passes and somewhere in the past a spurned lover pledges Revenge. I didn’t expect that. They have gathered here Two by two, these unpleasant intrusions. One watches The other for signs of compromise. And the man half Heartedly returns: he pulls at his jeans. They briefly speak Between tasks—one is walking, the other is not. I Pick my way between the rocks, kick stray ones back.

Claudia K. Grinnell was born and raised in Germany.

She now makes her home in Louisiana, where she teaches at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

music keeps you going most especially rock and roll europe '72 by the grateful dead borrowed from my sister's boyfriend somewhere in the summer and never returned. crumb did the cover which is still a little faded and coffeestained and smells like wine and weed and man when i hear the wild wispy guitar solo to "china cat sunflower" naturally mysteriously flowing like some new day out of nowhere II. into "i know you rider" bopping and skatting towards some lovely delicate freight train nirvana cross between country and blues and jazz and bluegrass the brilliant and keen kerouacian influenced lyrics and jerry garcia's sweet and somber voice chiming in gets me high all over again makes me want to break down and cry part from sadness part from happiness

III. (if shut eyes feels like i can get high after meeting that fine sweet southern belle from some catholic school getting nice on hurricanes in the warm dripping sweltering courtyard at night at pat o'briens in the french quarter of new orleans then in the moment suddenly deciding to just take off under the stars to biloxi to skinny dip in the gulf of mexico innocently kissing and making out then climbing back in to head reflective pensive through the warm drowzy deep southern wind with a bleary-eyed sun rising over the skyline of the dew dappled big easy)

Rimbaud's Face A professor gave me this t-shirt with a picture of Rimbaud's face on it.

It's grey, thin, fits well.

I put it on. Looked in the mirror looked at Rimbaud's face and he was pretty.

He appeared smooth like you could touch his cheek and out would fall feathers of dying white birds that lived in clear water.

I wore it out in public, to get a hot dog.

The waiter asked who's picture was on my t-shirt.

I told him it was my dad's high-school photo and that my dad had passed last March after an unfortunate incident involving a tall building and we had a memorial wherein his sister made t-shirts to commemorate his spirit.

Oh, he told me, sorry I thought it was a girl.

IV. from what i remember my sister and boyfriend had a pretty bad breakup and treated him like he never even existed and everything all of it the relationship and plans and promises and record exactly how he left it oy vey! gimme a break! "the sun will shine in my back door some day... steal your face right off your head."

Joseph Goosey parks cars in Jacksonville,FL. He has produced 2 print chapbooks and 2 online chapbooks.

He thanks you for reading.

Neighbourhood Open windows preparing the lingering vastness and clustering of summer, in the evenings’ long slow light.

And elbows on window-sills, skin on stone, the underside of eternity.

Homecoming is an accordion playing from a window, music wafting in the street’s air, catching you unawares, making your steps at once slow down and accompany the tune’s rhythm.

Sky and walls rustle and play while the rattle of the wheels of a suitcase fills the stones. Steps, wheels, window-sills and the accordion opening the evening.

Let me just rest and expand in this.

Joseph Reich is a social worker therapist who works out in the state of Massachusetts: A displaced New Yorker who sincerely does miss diss-place, most of all the Thai food, Shanghai Joe's in Chinatown, the fresh smoothies on Houston Street, and bagels and bialy's of The Lower East Side. He has a wife and handsome little son with a nice mop of dirty-blonde hair, and when they all get a bit older, hope to take them back to play, to pray, to contemplate in the parks and playgrounds of New York City.

Davide Trame is an Italian teacher of English, born and living in Venice-Italy, writing poems exclusively in English since 1993, has been published in approximately four hundred literary magazines all over the world since 1999. Davide's poetry collection, “ReEmerging”, was published as an on-line book by www.gattopublishing.com in 2006.

The Passing of Things

Where Was Mine?

'You sit to have waves rush to your open hands and you're surprised as cities grow there...'

From "To a Poetess" by Jim Carroll

So what? Leaves blew. I was bundled in soft fleece umbrella tightly wound Dead center of patio table a sure sign your smile had altered, stitched as it were The crows. Everywhere.

Telephone wires filled with them.

Everything comes to some remnant of self, we say...

Everything gasps for last gulps of before to become refugee in newer seasons, falling leaves and all.

You became a fugitive within your own skin.

You shook thunderous rage when storms grew luminous in your eyes brewing winds, warning signs. I chose blindness.

There. Had I only seen.

This world told us move on but we stalled and fought.

We held trunk of tree white knuckled revealing shadowed desperation not to let go.

So what? Stiff crimson leaves blew: cold wrapped around. Us. Time is cruel as frost Yet we engaged it.

I pulled loose threads from your blue lips tugged upwards for one full smile (trees were small in comparison) Around us worlds reached for survival.

Isn't that what living things do?

What we did, too?

I reached for your smile it hung there like a crescent from one single thread.

Winds roared, then descended down. Willing to kill.

Where was my crescent, I wondered...

Where was mine?

Blue light in the mirror; A reflection of sorts.

Of razor words resting, and melancholy tongue.

This, my loss for words.

Everything has changed, in this generation game played out. Flashbacks of blue, and my eyes-ribboned, tied like parcels.

My bouquet for you.

My requiem. For you.

Events transpire and yet... the stillness of softness; the fragility of us leaves me wanting...

Why does it surprise to learn of the passing of things?

Oh, this loss for words-damn it! I so wanted to say something worthy.... but all I hold is this-Blue as your eyes, this light.

It ever so slowly settles, then disappears, as all things do.

As things do. Maybe I was not meant to learn the words this speaks, but instead hold it's minutes, seconds...our lives crossing but never again.

Never again, but my words etched with yours by proxy.

And blue.

Blue as your eyes.

International Word Rocker and spoken word artist Cyndi Dawson (one half of the Dawson/Scott duo) is a well traveled Artist and Curator of the world-respected poetry and music venue 'Poets and Angels Music and Poetry Series'. Cyndi's poetry has been published in many anthologies and publications. Her spoken word has been featured in the 'Going Down Swinging' CD and has been featured on radio stations around the world. She has been featured in The Pulse Entertainment Magazine, The Star Ledger, The Home News Tribune and The Reporter.

She is the author of two books of poetry, 'Dream Sequences' and 'Inside of Outside. She has read all over NY/NJ at venues such as The Bowery Poetry Cafe in NYC, Cornelia Street Pub, NYC; Grassroots Arts Facility in Jersey City; Tribal Spears Gallery in Harlem, NYC and St. Marks Church in NYC. She recently read at the Poetry Cafe in London, Maggie's Bar in Stoke-Newington and the King Henry VI in Eton and at Feile in Dublin, Ireland. She has recently participated with her band 'Dawson/Scott' in the taping of a documentary of 'The Women of the Nuyurican' based on the emerging online poetry scene on Facebook. Ms. Dawson will be our featured poet interview in April 2010.

Stage Fright and Other Worries

by Shanta

Yesterday, my hubby and I went to watch our three-yearold son at our local stage school (no funny comments please).

As he's been putting on little shows for us since he was barely one, I was confident that he'd thrive in front of the audience of other mummies and daddies. But there was a horrible moment at the beginning when he just stood there frozen. And it got me thinking about how the audience affects us as writers.

When I sit down to write, I write for myself, never for an audience. This may sound like an odd thing to say as a published writer but for me, the act of writing is always about discovery. If the writing isn't in charge of itself, if I'm not learning where I'm going as I go, I don't want to know. I worry about the readership later. 'Oh, you mean, somebody's actually going to read it?' shrieks my inner critic. I would never be able to sit down and write if I worried about what my boss and my mother and Mrs Parsons from number 57 might think of it.

On speaking to some writer friends about their experiences, it seems I am not alone. Writer Fiona Robyn agrees, 'I don’t think about my audience at all. I trust that my characters know what my readers will want, and it’s my job to write their story down as accurately as I can and then polish it until it shines.'

It can be afterwards that The Fear sets in. The first piece of creative writing that I had published was a short poem. I was so ridiculously pleased about reaching this milestone that I blabbed about it to everyone within a ten mile radius. Then my dad asked to read it. I was five again, waiting for his approval. As he opened the poetry journal, my heart stopped. The next two minutes felt like two hours.

I'm not the only writer who has experienced panic at the reaction of friends and family. Novelist Megan Taylor says, ''After How We Were Lost was released, I met a group of friends who were each carrying a copy - my first instinct was to snatch those books away! I was terrified, I felt very oddly exposed. With my new novel, The Dawning, (due out January 2010) I half thought about prefacing it with an apology- Sorry about the swearing, Dad. And the drug taking ... But at the end of the day, honest warts-and-all has to be the only way to go.'

Anne Brooke , prolific novelist and poet, agrees that you make yourself hugely vulnerable when you write and it's published. Anne writes gay fiction and occasionally erotic fiction too, which some of her family find hard to understand. She says, 'I tend not to tell them therefore. I also try and avoid telling members of my church anything specific.'

Fiona worried about her nana’s reaction to some of her more racy scenes but as it turned out, 'She had no problem with the lesbian sex, but she wasn’t so keen on all the swearing! My next novel, Thaw, (due out February 2010) centres on contentious issues – suicide, self-harm = So yes, mixed feelings, but once the writing is finished I have to let go.'

Formal reviews can also affect us. When The Big Issue used the words 'a great novel' to describe my debut novel, Marilyn and Me, I believed I must have written a masterpiece. My confidence soared with every good review. Until I received a not so good one, which, of course, I won't go into detail about! Then, my brain disregarded every positive review and concluded, 'Oh, I can't write at all. It was all a lie!' It can be hard to stay grounded sometimes.

Fiona explains that how she's affected depends on how she's feeling in the first place. 'If I’m feeling centred, the positive comments are like gravy and the critical comments are potential valuable feedback or something I feel free to disagree with. On bad days the critical comments wound, and the positive comments are like cocaine.'

With all these fears to face, we might wonder why writers write at all! Is publication the ultimate goal? Anne says, 'I spend most of the time in a roller coaster ride of pleasure and terror! But when I write something, I always want to polish it to be the best it can be and then seek publication if I can. The ultimate driving force is to be read.'

But having other people read our work cannot the only motivation for writing. After all, so many of us keep diaries and journals. Writing is as much about personal expression as it is about communicating to an audience.

Megan explains, 'I do have some writing of which I'm proud that no one will ever read. These are pieces that ended up coming from a much more personal place than I'd intended. I'm very pleased they're written, but I'm just as pleased with my decision to keep them to myself.'

And after the dance, we went home and bundled in the front door and Smallboy proceeded to dance around the living room while I put the dinner on. Nobody was watching but that didn't stop him squealing in delight.

Maybe he was still on a high from the applause (and of course, I clapped doubly hard) or just maybe, the best bit was losing himself in the moment.

Photo credit: JacobEnos

The View From Here

BIG book list

Last month, every day up to December 25th an author featured at The View From Here over the last few years told us of their favourite read of 2009 in our Author Advent. Now we've pulled them all together into our BIG book list of 2009.

Just rip out the page and take it to your local bookshop and ask them to send you them - tell them we sent you!

Kate Thompson: The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally Pietro Grossi: What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg Stephen Clayton: Repetition by Alain Robbe-Grillet Shanta Everington: The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers John Baker: Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates Anne Brooke: The Winding Stick by Elise Valmorbida Gary Murning: Engleby by Sebastian Faulks Marina Lewycka: The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot Michael Kimball: Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler Mark Piggott: 2666 by Roberto Bolano Mari Strachan: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel Jon Haylett: Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex von Tunzelmann Rosy Thornton: The Chateau by William Maxwell Eliezer Sobel: The Angel of Forgetfulness by Steve Stern Paul Torday: Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford Gary Davison: Kill Your Friends by John Niven Gayle Forman: The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson Patrick Gale: Dancing Backwards by Salley Vickers Patricia Wood: The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak Markus Zusak: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy Julian Barnes: The Broken Word by Adam Foulds Jenn Ashworth: The Night Train by Martin Amis R.N. Morris: Being Dead by Jim Crace Deborah Lawrenson: The Vanishing Act of Esme by Maggie O'Farrell Antony Moore: Falling Palace by Dan Hofstadter

"Adam Foulds's The Broken Word (Cape 2008), about the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya in the 1950s, is the best long poem I've read in years. And I'm looking forward to his Booker-listed novel The Quickening Maze."

Julian Barnes Nothing to be Frightened Of

"This year I finally read Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. I originally got into it by listening to the Brad Pitt narrated audio version, and I soon found myself in the book itself. It’s a great book for feeling like you’re truly there, and when McCarthy says something like ‘He could see so clearly that all his life had led only to this moment, and that all after it led nowhere at all’, you’re hit with beauty and devastation simultaneously, and what more can you ask for from a writer?"

Markus Zusak The Book Thief

"This year I re-read, for the umpteenth time, Nancy Mitford's 'Love in a Cold Climate'. It is cheerful, romantic, unsentimental, and very, very funny. One of the great classics of the English comic novel."

Paul Torday The Girl on the Landing

"One of the perks of being in publishing is getting to read advance copies of books months before they come out. Of course, the downside to this is that sometimes you wind up falling in love with a book long before anyone else you know kno has read it. Such was the case with my favorite book of 2009, which, for the most of the world, won't come out until 2010: The Sky Is Everywhere by debut author Jandy Nelson grabbed me by the throat from the opening pages and kept me breathless until the last sentence. It's a story about Lennie, a teenage girl who's grappling with the sudden death of her sister, and of the things that grow out of the vacuum of loss. In Lennie's case, her own identity freed of her sister's shadow, as well as her the emerge emergence nce of herself as a sexual being. That makes it sound a little cheesy and pat coming-of of-age, age, but it's anything but. This book was so gorgeously written, so bursting with love, so romantic, it was riveting. It's officially a teen book, but like so much of tthe he fantastic teen fiction coming out these days, it's meant for all ages. It is being released in the UK in June of 2010 from Walker Books. Keep an eye out for it."

Gayle Forman If I Stay

"Earlier his year I really enjoyed re-discovering discovering George Eliot's Elio The Mill on the Floss. It's a great mixture of polemic and intensely moving human drama that few modern writers would get away with. You can read my comments on my website www.marinalewycka.com" www.marinalew Marina Lewycka We Are All Made Of Glue

"Wolf Hall is the most extraordinary book I have read in a long time. Like many readers, I don’t always feel that the Man Booker judges get it right - but this year I couldn't see how they could choose any other book. As a reader, I couldn't put Wolf Hall down because it involved me so much. As a writer, I admired Hilary Mantel’s craft: her use of techniques like the historic present tense and the close third person point of view - so close that she uses ‘he’ where the first person would use ‘I’; her use of imagery that is entirely appropriate to the time and place and people; the use of dialogue to convey character; the contrast of humour and horror. I found Wolf Hall a magnificent and seductive read, and an exemplary lesson in writing."

Mari Strachan The Earth Hums in B Flat

"I would pick Jim Crace's BEING DEAD. It's actually been out for ten years but I've only just got round to reading it! (It is a bit more up to date than my usual reading, which is Victorian era!) The writing is simply superb. The structure is very intriguing. And the subject matter highly original. Despite the almost scientific focus of the observations of what happens to the two central (dead) characters, there is an amazing lyricism to the writing. It's also a book with great heart. Everything is in the backstory, as Joseph and Celice begin the book dead. But as we learn about how they met and their subsequent marriage, and more directly the days leading up to their murder, they truly come alive in Crace's brilliantly imagined portrayal. It's part crime story, part poetic reflection on life and death, and I don't think I've ever read another book quite like it."

R.N. Morris A Vengeful Longing

First page photo credit: Loozrboy

Black Friday

by Norbert Luciano

Congressional legislators are seriously thinking of outlawing Black Friday.

It’s much too brutal, much too gruesome, much too much.

But people who participate in it love it – love it for the challenge it allows them to prove they’ve got it!

The “it” here is the killer instinct.

Black Friday is a reality show that’s unscripted, unrehearsed, unsupervised – with but one objective: Get It! The “it” in question can be whatever it is you want in a store for at least half the price it ordinarily costs, retail. It can also be nothing at all that you need or want. But for half the price? You’d feel the thrill –

sudden, surging, maddening!

The blood-lust of a vampire. The guy in the grip of road rage. The addict right before his “fix.”

Incidentally, “bargain,” as a word, is mysterious. Inherent in it is the promise that you can obtain the impossible – on the cheap – notwithstanding any and all obstacles that may be in your way= More to the point, you can possess whatever it is that your avaricious, thumping heart desires!

Yes, you can!

Heady stuff.

But the madness of it! Black Friday has been known to transform people from mildmannered, ineffectual milk toast to super-bad within a split second of passing a store advertising a sale of anything at, say, 70% off. Zero to 60 miles in half a second. No exaggeration.

Proof? I-Tube has captured people running around wild-eyed, amok, in stores offering such insane bargains.

[Ever see Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”?

Sociologists and psychologists have lately been saying that the artist was prophetic: He’d envisioned a shopper who had failed getting what he wanted on Black FridayS] Already, some well-known producers of horror films have begun filming the nightmare on Black Friday because what happens on this day reflect Man’s worse fears. Imagine your wife morphing into a wild, crazed woman right before your eyes -your worse suspicions coming true about her! Think of your son-

in-law -- gentle, meek and mild – deliberately shoving people half his size to the left and right of him; your dad elbowing old ladies; your son tripping housewives, and even trampling the geezer you saw overturned from his wheelchair by a pretty teenage girl – your daughter!

on that day of days. She also dresses for the occasion: Ninja-black top and trousers, sneakers, reinforced elbow and knee pads, hair pulled tightly back; and, for weapons, a pair of chucks and a grappling line and hook for the stuff in shelves she can’t immediately reach -- or for any

It sounded as if we were about to engage in

some kind of gladiatorial combat in tax-free Delaware And then the unthinkable: You snatching what you had your eye on from an old, tremulous priest – your confessor at church! Worse yet, he’d witnessed the murderous intent on your face!

Think of the penance to come!

A marine, just back from Iraq, said it was safer there in the good ol’ bad days than in one of the stores advertising a Black Friday sale. He was a “virgin,” he said, until “violated” with what went on at such an ungodly “ritual.” But he also confessed the experience helped him see his girl for who she was: A screaming, clawing, teeth-snapping demon who took no prisoners= He sported a black eye and his lips trembled as he spoke.

My own girl friend, as well, takes Black Friday seriously.

She gets herself in tip-top physical shape at least a month before she launches her attack on a store – Linda Hamilton in training for the Terminator. She exercises. She loses weight. She disciplines herself to sleep early, so that she can be up at the unholy hour the stores open

guy ahead of her.

“I’m going to get what I’m going for,” she swore, her eyes on fire.

When I said I’d like to go along, she laughed as if she’d heard the funniest joke ever; then she poohpoohed me to humiliation, when she found I meant what I’d said. But when I flushed and stuttered and sulked and cried, she relented – but unceremoniously took it upon herself to train me. Within days, I swear, I was looking like that marine friend I was telling you about: Trim, fit, cleareyed, strong – before he got so mauled and so miserably defeated, that is.

But my girl wasn’t as impressed as I was with myself, “The one thing you better have is heart, “ she said.

“What makes you think I don’t have what it takes for Black Friday?”

I wanted to know.

She asked me if there was anything on sale that I’d give my life for.

I said, “No=” “Then you’ve not the heart that you need for the challenge,” she concluded.

Challenge?

It sounded as if we were about to engage in some kind of gladiatorial combat in tax-free Delaware. I didn’t know how close I was to the truth.

To recover, I told her I had my heart set on a camera: A Canon.

Power Shot. Digital Elph. “You need more than just a heart ‘set’ on something,” she snapped.

“What?” I asked.

She made me a list of what was imperative for all Black Friday bargain-warriors to possess. Four things: Determination. Obsession.

Passion. Endurance.

In short, you have to be a DOPE, as they’d say in the old days, to get yourself involved with Black Friday!

But guess what?

I’m suicidal.

about the author Norbert Luciano served as a newscorrespondent for publications in the Far East; while in Hong Kong he wrote, “Early to Rise,” a satire on the Chinese commune system. While there he taught English and, later, in the Public School System in New York City. Norbert holds a BA in English, an MA in Education and had, at one time, taken courses in creative writing at the University of Chicago. For a time he pastored churches in New York and New Jersey.

Now retired living in Delaware, he’s returned to his first love, writing!

Photo Credit: Julian Povey

“A World of Digital Books, Envisioned”

by JK Evanczuk

The press is declaring that digital will overtake print within the decade. The visions that this news inspires are numerous and, occasionally, bizarre: a subway full of commuters with heads bowed over e-readers instead of morning newspapers, libraries with dozens of empty bookshelves hovering ghostlike behind radiating computers, multimedia diginovels with holograms jumping off every page. And that may only be the beginning.

So let’s engage in a thought experiment. Here is a world I have envisioned, wherein society has wholly purged itself of paperbound books, and digital readers have become the norm. Some of the events I will describe sound a little outrageous, but then again, some events have already come to pass.

It’s a brave new (digital) world: Libraries will shed themselves of books and replace the shelves with computer stations, with which library patrons can rent their favorite digital books for a limited amount of time.

Although each library-provided digital book will come equipped with the latest in anti-piracy technology, intelligent college students will nonetheless find a way to defeat it.

Book piracy will soar. Key authors will give interviews on how book piracy is ruining the publishing industry. Symposiums will be held. A select group of authors will register

all their works with Creative Commons and release their material for free as a preemptive move against piracy.

Many brick-and-mortar bookstores will become obsolete, as hoards of booksellers choose instead to operate purely over the Internet. The physical bookstores that remain will be condensed into one-stop electronic shops, wherein customers can simply browse a digital collection on a computer screen and download their purchases directly to their digital readers.

Booksellers will gape at all the empty space once occupied by bookshelves. They will fill the floor with plentiful seating space for customers to use while they enjoy their new purchases.

Every bookstore will have a coffee shop.

Coffee sales will go through the roof.

Bookstores will find that coffee sales dramatically exceed those of books, and so to sustain their business booksellers will demand publishers provide them higher profit margins.

Publishers will seek additional sources of revenue to compensate for this.

They will insert advertisements in between book chapters, a move that will prove wildly controversial at first, especially with book bloggers, but eventually these pundits will concede that it is a necessary move for the good of the publishing industry. After a few years hardly anyone will mind the advertisements, with the exception of a few grumbling old-timers who still vividly recall “the good old days of ad-free digital books.”

A bevy of new independent publishers, as well as selfpublishers, will flood the market, seizing upon reduced start-up costs.

They will sell their digital books everywhere from Etsy to iTunes. Big publishers will find that increasing

numbers of consumers are purchasing their fiction from these new independent publishers. In response, they will pump their money into marketing. Book trailers will begin airing on TV and in movie theaters. The publishing companies will tout their authors like rock stars.

The entertainment media will notice the increased attention paid to writers, and so authors will begin appearing in tabloids, beauty magazines, and on E!. The most photogenic authors will find their sales skyrocketing.

Readers will revel in the blossoming selection of literature available to them. Trendsetters will snub the material published by the big publishing houses, opting instead for fiction provided by trendy independent publishers. However, these trendsetters will realize too late that, given that the digital reader does not display a book cover, their lit-snobbery is ill-conceived. No one but them will actually know what they are reading. Inspired by popular demand, a new generation of digital readers will eventually be produced.

These new models display a book cover on the back of the reader.

Short stories will increase in popularity, ity, especially among those who use public transit, due to lengths that can be conveniently read during the average work commute. The typical reader will hold entire libraries on their digital readers, swapping story collections with their friends like people ple swap mixtapes.

The story format will continue to evolve. Novels without pictures, video, or music will remain in demand, but many new authors will turn to multimedia formats. ChooseChoose your-own-adventure adventure interactive novels will see a resurgence.

Holographic novels become less of an abstract concept and more of a legitimate possibility as new technologies are developed. Book sales threaten to overtake movie ticket sales. The publishing industry, having completely forgotten their supposed near-failure near only years before, will declare that this is “the golden age of literature.”

JK Evanczuk is the founder of Lit Drift (http://www.litdrift.com), an online resource dedicated to the art & craft of fiction in the 21st century.

Photo credit top: Nicolas Chang Ch

Peter’s Secret Place

by Kathleen

I knew not to ask, “What’s that, Peter?” when he brought in the first wooden board. We weren’t that casual. Our conversations concerned the world and its needs, global hardship, destruction, and greed. And then, too, history and genius and fundamental, universal truth—nothing personal.

To an astonishing degree, Peter found navel-gazing repellent. “I, me, mine,” he said. “What’s wrong with people?”

When we met, I attempted to argue: People need to talk about their likes and dislikes; it’s how we relate.

But he said, no, it only leads people to demand that everyone believe what they believe. Well, all right; I went along. After all, Peter was the most intelligent, handsome man I’d ever met.

Averse to anyone worming around for validation, Peter naturally disliked revealing his inner life to me or anyone else. Initially, his secretive nature thrilled me— such depth and intrigue.

When we married, we made “non-intervention” our first vow. We would respect each other’s differences just as we respected other cultures.

Our apartment has one bedroom, a tiny kitchen and tinier bathroom but high ceilings and thick brick walls.

Behind the bedroom is a long, narrow, high area, set up as a closet, one half his, one mine.

Once, when he scolded me for examining his toy soldier collection, I said, “No worries, darling, if you need to be furtive.” It was, I thought, just another guy thing.

But he said, “I’m never furtive, Angela.”

Of course, Peter wasn’t really furtive but should he ever wish for a furtive moment, I understood. I understood, too, not to question his privacy.

The stockpile of wood and carpenter nails accruing in his closet’s shadows meant nothing. I imagined it was like a musty, secret shrine. Or something.

As his project developed, however, I worried. Turned out, it was a boy’s fort, secured to the closet ceiling. I surmised but never saw that he shimmied up a rope and pushed open the fort’s trap door.

Our confines were such that I registered without actually watching him hoard bottled water, batteries, flares, flotation devices. He acquired a Boy Scout uniform and soon spent—it seemed—his life inside his fort. His troops traded intelligence in muffled voices.

And then, several times he refused to decamp for dinner. This battalion or that, I gathered, had been bombed to smithereens. Well, please. This isn’t how I’d envisioned married life.

Yet since I was married, I tried to remain loyal.

Soon he wouldn’t come to bed due to military conflicts. He continued going to work, though. Until the holidays, when insurrections proliferated.

I’ve been staying at my brother’s and avoiding the landlord’s summons. I can’t run forever, obviously. My coworkers won’t cover for me another minute.

To be honest, I’m afraid here, ready with my door key, the hallway thick with silence and desolation.

next month

interview with Scriptapalooza

interview with Essentialwriters.com

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