Adelaide Literary Award Anthology 2018: SHORT STORIES, Vol. One

An Old Cemetery

By Jose Recio

Over the last few years, Angelica has gone through an ordeal—her
father died, and she married her good-for-nothing high school
sweetheart, who proved incapable of dealing with a miscarriage she
had a few months after they were married and divorced her. She re-
turned to live with her mother because, at twenty-three, she had no
other place where to go. Now on vacation in Guadalajara, Mexico,
she begins to feel alive.

“You must do something to get yourself out of the black hole
in which you are now,” her mother had said.

What was there for her? She wished she were dead—no more
trying and failing.

“Like what?” She asked.
“Like… taking a vacation?”
They were in Angelica’s bedroom, her lying on the bed and her
mother standing by the door.
Angelica lifted her head a little. “I’ve no place to go, mom.”
“You could go to Guadalajara. I’ll cover your expenses.”
Angelica’s breathing slowed down. “You mean the city where
you and dad met?”
“I was on vacation when I met your father. What’s wrong with
that?” her mother said. “At first, we were happy,” she added.
Angelica pulled herself up and sat on the bed. “You have often
blamed yourself for bringing him to Los Angeles and marrying him.”
“And I still do. But I didn’t know then that alcohol addiction
is a disease.”

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Angelica turned pensive. Her dad was a drunkard. He used to
come home drunk from work and demand to be served: dinner at
8:00, a bottle of wine on the table, the paper by his side, and bring
me this, and take this plate away. She had missed having fun with
her friends because of his exigencies.
“Mom, I don’t see why you try to justify Dad’s behaviors.”
“We all make mistakes, Angelica,” her mother replied. “Often
I wonder how would life be for you now if you had married a more
mature man.” She walked to the edge of the bed, leaned forward,
and kissed her daughter on the forehead. “I only want the best for
you, dear,” she added and left the room.
Over the course of the next month, Angelica spent long hours
lying on her bed or sitting on a chair by the window, ruminating and
crying. Somewhere within that period, though, she became aware of her
being sad and angry. Who was she, Angelica, to reproach her mother
for marrying the man of her choice? What about her own decisions?
“Mom, I’ve been thinking about your suggestion,” she said a
day they had sat down for dinner. ”I mean, about taking a vacation.”
“I’ll help you with the expenses. I don’t want you to use your
savings,” said her mother, and her eyes brightened.
“I appreciate your generosity. I’ll take a week’s time,” Angelica
replied.
She was eating the soup with a healthy appetite, and her mother
glanced at her happily.
“I choose to go to Guadalajara,” Angelica said.
“But I thought—”
“Now I see things differently,” she cut her mother short. “It isn’t
your or my fault that we married the wrong men,” she said. “I’m glad
to have this opportunity to visit my father’s town,” she paused. “The
only trouble,” she added, “I dread to come across dad’s relatives there.”
“Your dad had only two living sisters left, and I don’t know
where they live now.”
“Thank you, Mom.”
They finished eating.
A week later, Angelica flew to Guadalajara. She had reserved
a room at a hotel downtown. She checked in at mid-morning, un-

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packed, took a shower, changed into comfortable clothes—linen
pants, cotton blouse, and tennis shoes—and walked out, ready to
explore the downtown.

When she hit the streets, she felt an upwelling of contentment
rising inside her. She strolled down the street, mingling with the
crowds and looking around: the historic buildings, the shops loaded
with merchandise, the Cathedral. She went inside the temple. A
few tourists meandered through the aisles, and some locals knelt on
the benches. Angelica admired the art in the religious figures, the
ornamented pulpit, and the stained glass windows. She also liked
the arrangement of several bouquets of flowers someone had dis-
tributed around the main altar. She then knelt on a prayer stool to
say a prayer, but painful memories arose in her mind—the loss of
her unborn baby, the divorce and its consequences, and her father’s
demanding behavior—and she became unfocused.

During the rest of the day, she tried to maintain an open mind
and absorb the newness around her, but in the evening, after she
returned to her hotel, feelings of happiness intermingled with those
of sadness, the excitement of coming back to life mixed with grief
from her past losses. Nevertheless, she determined to get up early
the next morning to visit an old cemetery.

When she arrived, all she found was a long stone wall, built
along the sidewalk of a narrow street, and a wrought iron gate, which
gave way to the graveyard. A man in a blue shirt and khaki pants
stood near the gate.

“The next tour starts at 11:30, this morning,” he said. He was
holding a gray fabric satchel, which he distractedly swung back and forth.

Is he a beggar? “Next tour did you say?”
“Yes,” he replied, lifting and thrusting his chin forward to in-
dicate a piece of paper stuck on the gate.
“Oh! I see. Thank you.”
She didn’t quite ‘see’ it, though; her thoughts were still on the
man. Something in him attracted her. She read the note—a hand-
written time table of the tours for visiting the cemetery.
“You’re right. Twenty minutes left before the next visit,” An-
gelica said.

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He took a few steps away from the entrance to the cemetery
and sat down on one of two big, ornamental rocks that lay one
beside the other in front of the wrought iron gate. She decided to
wait for the next tour and she went to sit down on the other rock
biside.
“Are you Interested in the legends about this cemetery?” he asked.
“What legends do you mean?”
He opened the satchel and took a pamphlet out of it. Angelica
watched his moves, his brownish face, his curly hair… But was he
missing an eye?
“You can read all about it here.” He waggled the booklet in
front of her.
She didn’t pay attention to his motion; she wanted to know
what was wrong with his left eye.
“No, thank you,” she said.
The man, who seemed to be in his mid-thirties, returned the
pamphlet into the satchel. She glanced at him. Suddenly, he opened
the eyelid of the sick eye with his thumb and index fingers.
“This,” he said, “happened to me in a fight.”
She leaned forward and looked into a hollow eye socket with a
whitish membrane at its bottom.
“How awful!” she said and covered her face. “Can you see well
with your other eye?” She asked.
“I see, but I get bad headaches if I force myself to read. I’m
like a living dead!”
“I’m sorry,” she said and turned her head away from him.
“Please, forgive me if I have hurt your sensibility,” the man
stated in a polite tone.
A touch of distinction was apparent, and she struggled to iden-
tify its source within him.
“Please, excuse my flimsiness.” She turned back to him. “I’m
Angelica. I’m from Los Angeles.”
“I’m pleased to meet you. It’s Rodolfo.”
She liked the way he shook hands, a light pressure that he
accompanied by a slight bowing.
“You speak Spanish very well,” he said.

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“My dad was from this city. He spoke to me in Spanish.” She
tried to focus on his only eye.
“Did you say he was?”
“My father died a few years ago. I’m an only child.”
“I’m sorry,” he said and made the sign of the cross.
Angelica interpreted that Rodolfo had shown respect for the
deceased. Had she ever shown respect for her father? She withdrew
into herself. Meanwhile, Rodolfo gazed at her long, curly black hair
and the blueness of her eyes.
“Is your mother an American?” he broke the silence.
“Yes,” she muttered.
Two young women arrived at the gate, and Angelica heard
them speaking in English. She checked her cellular. “It’s time to
join the tour,” she said.
“I feel sorry about your father’s,” Rodolfo said while she was on
her way to joining the two women on their way into the cemetery.
The cemetery was a small place. The young Mexican tour guide
explained the ins and outs of the site in English, but his talk didn’t
trigger Angelica’s interest. To her, it looked like a poorly maintained
graveyard. The other two girls on tour asked nothing but silly ques-
tions. She was growing disappointed. The guide led the group to a
corner where a thick oak tree sat, encircled by a two-foot-high brick
fence.
“Underneath this tree, as the story goes,” the guide said, “a
vampire lives. Many
People believe—”
“Excuse me,” Angelica interrupted, “I didn’t know these tours
were on a schedule. The time I spent waiting outside for this one to
start has put me behind in my plans for the day, so I must leave now.”
She handed a tip to the tour guide and walked down the mean
path toward the wrought iron gate. The others watched her leaving.
Outside the gate, she saw Rodolfo still sitting on the same rock.
This poor guy didn’t seem to sell many pamphlets. She opened her
purse and took a hundred pesos bill out of it.
“I don’t care much about the legends in your pamphlets, but
please, accept my contribution to your cause,” she said.

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“Thank you. What cause do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I feel upset about your eye.”
He got up and started swinging his bag like a pendulum. Was
he sad?
“I appreciate your feelings towards me,” he said. “It would be
a pleasure to get to know you better.”
“I can’t stay. I got a ticket for a show downtown.”
“Can I see you tomorrow? I’ll be at the gazebo in front of the
Cathedral at 6:00 pm,” he said.
That night, Angelica could hardly fall asleep. She liked many
things about Rodolfo, his mustache, his long sideburns, his manners.
But what did he want from her?
The next day, after she had taken several city walking tours, she
returned to the hotel to rest. Later, still thinking about Rodolfo, she
showered, brushed her hair, changed into a white blouse, red skirt,
and black shoes, and walked out to meet him.
At the gazebo, Rodolfo was pacing back and forth seemly anx-
ious. He was wearing the same clothes from the prior day plus a
black jacket. Something was missing, though. Oh, the satchel! He
looked more elegant without it. When he spotted her, he came to
her, waving hello. For a short while, both remained quiet, as if a
little embarrassed to facing each other, until they started walking
down the avenue; then, magically, they behaved as if they were used
to going out together. He suggested going to dinner. She accepted
the invitation. And they went to a restaurant on Av. Chapultepec.
“A mariachi group performs in this restaurant,” he said after
they had entered the place.
Angelica liked the looks of and the atmosphere in the restaurant.
“This may cost you a fortune,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” he replied. The busboy was leading them to a
table. “I keep some savings from the time when I worked. The selling
of the booklets is just to keep me busy.”
“What was your occupation?” she asked after they had sat at
the table.
“Before the fight, I owned a small bookshop.” He replied
cheerfully.

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A waiter came to their table: “Pierna de cordero con mole y en-
salada mixta.” They both ordered.
“I’ll pay for the wine,” Angelica said.
“We better drink lemonade,” Rodolfo said.
“Fine with me.” she agreed. “So, you were saying you had a busi-
ness, but then you fought somebody and lost everything?” she added.
“Yes.”
“You’ll excuse me,” she said, “but isn’t that unusual?”
Rodolfo’s only eye started quivering.
“Tell me, Rodolfo,” she went on, “what drew you to the fight?”
“I was drunk in a bar. I started instigating a couple of thugs,
and they beat me up.” Angelica looked at him directly. “Are you an
alcoholic?”
The bus boy brought a jar of lemonade to their table, and Rodolfo
began pouring the refreshment into the glasses. His hand was shaky.
He raised his glass. “For us,” he said.
Angelica clicked on his glass and smiled at him. The waiter
returned with the dishes.
“I’ve been an alcoholic, but I am not one anymore,” he said—a
declaration Angelica had heard before from other alcoholics, and she
knew it had proved to be false for the majority of them.
“I have learned at Al-Anon that—”
“Bullshit!” he yelled.
She was startled. But his expression of anger came about mixed
with one of firmness and determination that she liked.
“What then?” she asked.
“Alcoholics are not all made out of the same pattern. I know
some who go to AA meetings but fall off the wagon quickly. I don’t
go to any meetings, and I’ve been sober for a year. I’m not an alco-
holic anymore.” He went back to chewing his cordero con mole and
drinking his lemonade.
The waiter came to their table again. “Dessert?” They both de-
clined.
“Rodolfo, please, let’s calm down. After all, we’re getting to
know each other,” she said. They had finished eating. “Perhaps we
should leave now and breathe the fresh air?” she added.

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“I’ll walk you to your hotel,” he replied, still a bit upset.
Rodolfo paid the bill. On their way out, Angelica threw a last
glance at the mariachi group. She loved their colorful suits and wide-
wing hats. Outside, they walked slowly. They didn’t talk much but
often smiled at each other. Occasionally, their bodies were brought
together, jostled by the waves of people walking in both directions,
and then Rodolfo purposely encircled her waist with his arm. She
enjoyed his contact, which brought memories of the beginnings of
her past marital life.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” Rodolfo asked when they arrived
at her hotel.
“You can leave me a message, room thirteen,” she said and
walked into the hall.
The next day, they met again at the gazebo. He took her to
visit the neighborhood where he was born and raised. They strolled
around, and he pointed out the building of the high school he had
attended and the grounds where he used to play soccer. In his com-
pany, she experienced a child’s joy; something she had only rarely
felt with her ex-husband.
“Where did you have the bookshop?” she asked.
“Not far from here. Let’s walk there. I’ll show you.”
He took her into an area of narrow streets with aligned small
shops.
“This one was once ‘Rodolfo’s Bookshop,’” he said. He had
stopped in front of a shop filled with colorful quinceañera dresses,
and sadness appeared in his only eye.
“I’ll buy you a latte,” she proposed.
They entered Café Galeria across the street. There, Rodolfo
talked nostalgically about his passion for books and love for reading.
“Do you like to read?” he asked.
Angelica had not read a novel for a long time and, knowing
this, she felt diminished in front of him.
“I should read more,” she said. “After high school, I started
my way to becoming a teacher, but I married, and I quit reading.”
“You’re married?” he asked, looking shocked.

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“No, I mean I was married. We’re divorced now. We were high
school sweethearts.”
She was dying to find out about Rodolfo’s life, but didn’t want
to appear intrusive.
“Another cup of coffee?” he asked.
“No thank you. We better go along.”
They left the coffee shop and slowly walked back to her hotel.
Before she went in, Rodolfo kissed her. Her chest swelled with sat-
isfaction.
That night, before falling sleep, Angelica admitted to herself
that she had enjoyed Rodolfo’s company.
The next day, Sunday, Rodolfo phoned her early. He wanted
they went to an Indian market, about an hour by bus. “In the early
morning, the market is at its best,” he said.
The market, set along the main drag, consisted of stalls lined
up to the right and left of the sidewalk. Immersed in a sea of bodies
and things, Rodolfo passed his arm around Angelica’s shoulders.
She felt happy.
On their way back to town on the bus, it started pouring. Big
drops slid down the window panels, blurring the outside view. Inside
the bus, beside Rodolfo it felt cozy. He pulled her a little bit closer to
him.
“I can’t see why any man would divorce you,” he whispered.
“We were young, inexperienced. A few months into our mar-
riage, I had a miscarriage. My ex-husband couldn’t deal with it.”
She was disclosing intimate details. Embarrassed, she turned to look
outside, but it all appeared opaque.
“What about you? Are you married?” She turned back to him.
“No. I lived with my girlfriend for a year until she left me after
I had the fight.”
“Why would a woman leave her boyfriend at a moment of crisis?”
“I was drinking too much.”
“Oh! That!”
The bus stopped a stone’s throw from the hotel, and they
stepped out. The rain had ceased. Angelica said she was tired, and
Rodolfo kissed her goodbye and left.

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The next evening was Angelica’s last one in Guadalajara. She
had discovered a cute little restaurant during her touristic rounds
and invited Rodolfo to dinner. “It will be my pleasure,” she said.
“Do you live alone?” She asked while sitting at the table.
“After my girlfriend took off, I moved into my mother’s. My
father passed away five years ago. He was an alcoholic. I’m the only
child, like you.”
Angelica choked on her food. She coughed; then, she left her
fork and knife on the table and drank a sip of sparkling water. “A lot
of coincidences in our lives!” she said after a moment. They smiled
at each other with complicity. What would her mother think if she
told her that she had met an attractive Mexican man?
“I’m curious, Rodolfo. What are your plans for the future?”
He swallowed his last bite from his beefsteak and looked her
directly.
“To be honest, now that I’ve met you and I’ve quit drinking,
I feel like going back into business.”
“But you said you get bad headaches—”
“True,” he cut her off. “Look, Angelica, I like you a lot. I think
we could do business together. I mean, you’d be the reader and I the
business adviser,” he added jubilantly.
“That’s very kind and loving, Rodolfo. I’ve got good feelings
about you, too. Unfortunately, I’m leaving tomorrow.”
He seemed to be taken aback, and she realized she had not told
him yet she was leaving the next day.
“Will you come back soon? I’ll be waiting for you.”
“I need time to heal, Rodolfo. Emotionally, this week has been
a rolling coaster. I’ll let you know about me. I promise.”
When they came out of the restaurant, the breeze was cool,
but they chose walking back to her hotel. He looked down; perhaps
defeated? She had learned from Al-anon that alcoholics often expect
somebody will rescue them from their falls. Rodolfo despised AA.
Why? After her father had attended his first and only meeting, he
also disliked AA.But he never achieved sobriety. Would Rodolfo be
capable of staying sober?
“I think you should attend AA meetings,” she said.
“We’ve talked about it. You know where I stand in that regard.”

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She didn’t know what to think, what to believe, what to do.
She needed time to reflect on it all. For now, she argued, they should
leave the matter the way it was; they should remain friends.
Back in L.A., Angelica told her mother about Rodolfo while
they were having tea in the kitchen. Her mother was surprised that
her daughter had set eyes on a one-eyed man.
“He swears he will never drink again,” Angelica said.
“Does he have an AA sponsor?”
“No. He feels capable of doing it on his own.” Angelica’s voice
dropped. “He wants me back,” she added.
Her mother made a grimace, which Angelica read as an expres-
sion of skepticism.
“Do you think, mom, he will be capable of staying sober?”
Her mother had a sip of tea before she answered. “I can’t say,
but I’ll tell you this,” she said. “It’s awfully difficult to love an alco-
holic. You must decide on your own.”
Silence descended over them, and quietly, Angelica retired to
her bedroom. She wished to fall asleep, but her mother’s last words,
you must decide on your own, resonated in her ears like the Beetle’s
buzzing. Still, she debated what she should do until, at the edge of
dawn, she fell asleep. When she woke up, approaching noon, she felt
at peace. “I’ll go back to Guadalajara and decide,” she told her mother.

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Jose L Recio was born and raised in Spain. He studied medicine
in Spain and later left for California on a Scholarship. He currently
lives with his wife, Deborah, in Los Angeles. While in practice, he
published several papers in specialized journals. Over the last few
years, interest in creative writing keeps him busy. Having grown
to become bicultural, he writes both in Spanish and English, and
sometimes he translates his texts.

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In The Waiting Room

By Peter Freeman

Placing the magazine back on its rack, I sat back, relaxed, and lazily
gazed at the room. Breathing in the cool fragrant air, it felt the
same as other waiting rooms, with their cool, clean smelling, even
fragrant air.

Such quietness was enough to meditate in, I thought.
I sensed my ears blocking the sound of the occasional truck that
rattled past in the street below. I heard the slow creak of a reason-
ably comfortable chair as the sitter became relaxed, then down the
corridor, the quick, clicking of the high heels of the sweet, smiling
office girls. The muffled silence was occasionally broken by the sharp,
light ring of a telephone, and the words that follow it.
“Mr. Smith? Doctor Cain will see you, room six, third door
on the left.”
A man rose unsteadily to his feet and moved down the corridor
with an uncertain step, found the right door, opened it, quietly shut
it, and then all was still again.
Taking out a cigarette, I tapped it against the box of matches
in my other hand.
Pleasant sound.
I glanced at the small plant growing in the old pink painted
tin. Behind this plant, almost obscured, was a sign.

NO SMOKING PLEASE
Oh well, never mind, plenty of time to for my smoke.

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I put the small white stalk back in the box, and straightened
out to fit them securely in my breast pocket.
They ought to put the sign somewhere else. Besides, the paint’s
peeling off.
That plant’s well groomed, I wonder what it is, looks like a rubber
plant. . .Ah yes, must be a rubber plant. You’d wonder how it would
grow in a rusty tin like that. It would certainly draw the goodness out
of that small amount of soil, and the tin probably wouldn’t hold much
water with those holes in the side, long rusted through. Hmmm. . .they
painted it the right colour too, it matches the colour of the mottled streaks
of the brown and red rust residue.
It’s wonderful how it matches the coolness of this green room, and
at least that tin gives one something to focus one’s waiting brain upon. I
wonder if there is another one or two of these plants, perhaps they have a
quaint, old, rusty tin. No, what a pity. The room is very bare with only
one plant and these few chairs and divans.
That divan, must be a relic from World War One. It’s a wonder
that fat man doesn’t break it with his two hundred pounds of fat. Poor
man! It must be hot and labourious lugging that around everywhere
he goes. I’m lucky I’m not like him. No wonder he has tired face, high
blood pressure, I suppose.
That little boy beside him, doesn’t he look a bit like my little boy,
and he has the same antics too. What a sturdy fellow he is, a good mate
for my Johnny.
A smile spread across the boy’s face as he looked at me.
What’s he smiling at? I’m not that funny, am I, little boy? Anyway,
I’d better return his smile.
I felt my face crease as it broke into a smile.
“Now Bobby, don’t you annoy these gentlemen, will you?”
These words came to me softly, sweetly.
What a well spoken woman she is!
“Oh no! He’s all right. Such a good little man, aren’t you?” I said.
The boy smiled more than ever.
“Yep!” he said.
I chuckled at this remark, for it echoed through the room and
sounded sweet and strong. I rearranged my body, then settled down
again.

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I wonder when I will be called? I would really like to stay here all
morning since I’m in no hurry and the boss gave me the morning off. I
must tell him how wonderful it is, so relaxing.
As I mused, voices forced into my consciousness.
Forget them, they are ugly compared to this beautiful silence. These
girls, always disturbing ones thoughts.
The voices came again, and they sounded familiar.
I’ve heard that name before, a Mr. McDonald is wanted.
I looked around and fixed my gaze upon the fat man.
Perhaps he has to move? Did they say Mr. McDonald?
Gripping the chair arms, I rose, walked upright to the desk,
and listened.
“Room fifteen at the end of the corridor, Doctor Bryant wants
you.”
I stared at the room at the end and walked stiffly towards it,
leaving my thoughts on the chair behind me.

Peter Freeman started writing short stories while in high school
and, in his late teens, discovered that poetry gave him an outlet for
his emerging feelings. He became passionate about the social, en-
vironmental and relationship issues of his youth and found writing

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was an ideal medium to share his growing concern and solutions for
a better world.

When Peter uses poetry to tell his stories, he chooses the best
medium and style to engage and affect his readers. His powerful
adventures are expressed as rhythmical ballads, whimsical pieces are
formed using gentle rhymes, and dark verses use heavy overtones to
build a strong connection with readers.

His short stories are ideas that deliver messages of hope, sad-
ness, conflict, and many other aspects of being human. He draws on
the essence of his experiences in the grip of adventure.

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In Geronimo’s Shadow

By Michael Washburn

The caravan plodded onward into the haze. It was a caravan only by
a generous definition of the term, but that is what its leader insisted
on calling it. His mind was almost screaming, How much further
now? The river was so many miles away, and the withered sagebrush
dotting the plains on either side of the road offered the most pitiful
slivers of shadow. The riders would be out of water within the hour.

Andrew McGahan had no idea what to tell the others. No
amount of managerial experience, no weighty decisions made be-
hind a desk could prepare someone for the sick desperation and the
chalky sensation at the base of the throat. There was no way to make
them feel united in a great cause, just the sand and blistering haze,
the stones that you thought would eventually cool off like someone’s
temper, but the anger raged on and on. It didn’t seem logical or fair
that the day could keep refusing to make some kind of offering.

Anyone would feel at ease when surrounded by a group of
friends in this elegant apartment in Venice. They lay back and sipped
their pinot noir as voices rose from the piazza below, mingled with
the sounds of a harp. Some of Andrew’s friends gently derided his
refusal to deny the existence of the Creator.

Andrew: “You know, you don’t have to be so contemptuous
about Christians just because a lot of your friends think it’s unhip
to be religious.”

Mark: “I grew up being forced to repeat, over and over, what
no one could show me or prove to me empirically, and I had to stand
in the closet a lot. I think it ruined my whole development.”

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Justin: “Some of the Methodists I’ve run into were just some
of the plain nastiest people ever.”
“Oh, they wouldn’t let you cuss?” asked Andrew.
“No, you should have seen how the Methodists in this little
town treated Robert Chen.”
Andrew’s friend began to tell the story of Robert Chen, who,
thanks to a congenital defect—a malformed rib cage—had the ap-
pearance of being paralyzed throughout his left half. Many people
in Norbury Glen, the community north of Boston where Robert
spent a summer, could hardly hide their loathing for him, even if
he was the guest of a couple who had spent a year in China and
hoped to produce musicals in Robert’s town someday. Awkward and
emotionally immature, Robert was given to violent tantrums, but
what really got him in trouble was his crush on Sarah Carr, whom
he leered at, dwelling on her buttocks and breasts, talking openly
to others about fucking her. Sarah was mortified. Then came the
morning that Robert took Dave Boyer’s car on a jaunt to the beach
without speaking to anyone first, and crashed the car not three miles
outside the Grove. That evening, Robert Chen sat in a dark room
and felt the scar where they’d operated on him all those years before.
For hours and hours he was all alone. In the second evening of his
isolation, there came one emissary.
“Andrew, you were just a bit rude last night. I do know how
grating it was,” said Kate Nash, her arm in Andrew’s as they strolled
through the streets of Venice amid the riotous mélange of accents
and designer clothes and Swiss and Belgian labels on the bottles and
cigarette packs littering the café tables. Andrew studied Kate’s every
move as she stopped and bent forward to study the headlines on Die
Welt and the Guardian and Le Monde, while more torrents of tour-
ists came through the street and jostled the couple, and more, and
more, and still more, making Andrew think back to an article about
the soaring margin by which visitors outnumbered residents here.
They strolled through the streets for the next hour, Kate al-
luding often to the sex that would come that night, and then her
questions strayed into new terrain, the jaunts that Andrew planned
to vineyards on New Zealand’s South Island and in Bordeaux, to the

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wilds of Quebec where you could live splendidly in total isolation, or
so he told her. Andrew made it all so vivid, as if the trips would be
confirmation of visions that already gave him joy. They made their
way through a caressing breeze to the café where friends waited, the
tug of Kate’s slender arm hinting softly.

Paris, Bastille Day. Kate minded much more than Andrew the
brusqueness of the merchants and cashiers who did not make eye
contact even when they’d shortchanged you and you went back and
hissed at them. Nor did Andrew seem fazed by the heavy unglam-
orous air that made your soul revolt at the processed and packaged
magic of a week in this arrondissement. After a few drinks at the
Café de Montmartre, they battled their way through the sweaty, sad
crowds and up to their suite on the fifth floor of the Hotel Lefebvre.
Andrew was feeling Kate up again, nice clean Kate, before they were
through the door.

Later, as they lay in bed watching the fireworks out the window,
Kate said, “It’s mad out there. I see the libertarian in you taking in-
spiration from all this, it’s all about the runaway state, the mob that
seizes power and rends and crushes helpless people.”

“No, Kate. This celebration is everything I’m about. It’s just
power, it’s get-the-fuck-out-of-the way power, let me do what I’m
going to do.”

“You think you’re God.”
“I’m so glad those stupid friends of yours didn’t follow us
here,” he said a bit later.
“You wanted to devote all of your time to me.”
“That’s not why they wore out their welcome.”
“Well, maybe I’ll just go crash at the airport, then,” she
snapped, removing her hand from his groin.
“Kate. Please don’t be so touchy. All I was saying was that they
were like a bunch of trained seals, and I might not be any better a be-
liever than they, but it really grated. This has nothing to do with us.”
“Well, I can’t say you struck me as a ‘good believer’ at any
point since we met.”
They watched the rotation of red, blue, yellow, and orange
bursts above the sweaty multitudes in the dirty streets and terraces,

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and at length Andrew sensed the upset draining out of Kate like
water from a beached trawler. Slowly, her hand found its way back,
and she caressed him, and they chatted some more and gazed out at
the roars and bursts. The last thing he remembered her asking before
they drifted off was, “That guy Chen. Robert Chen. Did you think
it was fair what they did?”

Andrew had found himself on the defensive a great deal in the
weeks since returning from Europe to Phoenix, but this time it was
not the executive vice president who called for him.

“Should I call security?” asked the voice on the phone, the
woman at the office building’s front desk.

Andrew thought for a moment before saying, “No . . . no, let
me speak to the guy.”

Down in the lobby, he saw that it was the same wizened old
man who had stared him down on the street the week before. If there
was some issue that could blow up into a crisis, Andrew wanted to
know of it before anyone else. He approached the gnarled Apache
who had hobbled in with that gait exhibited on a downtown street
in Andrew’s memory.

“Is there something I can help you with, my friend?” the ex-
ecutive asked.

“I doubt it,” the man replied.
“Maybe you came here to make a fashion statement, then.”
“Do you know what this company has done?”
“Look,” said the executive, “I just might be willing to meet you
downtown if there’s something you really need to tell me.”
“So this would be, maybe, item #6 on your agenda for the
week.”
“I’ve got a meeting to run to now,” the executive said.
“All right then, four o’clock Saturday at the Lone Star Diner.”
The old man was still incredulous about Andrew’s consenting
to meet him in person, and something about the executive sitting
across from him eluded him even now. Andrew did not fidget as the
gnarled stranger began to spin a tale of Rosemont Corporation mines
releasing cyanide and arsenic, residues from the process of mining
gold and separating it from the soil, into stream beds running to the

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homeland of the White Mountain Apaches. The first consequences
were babies that appeared oddly shaped, the forms never straight-
ening out with age. The doctor in Willcox had no answer.

This child has seven fingers.
More than a few young people from the White Mountain
reservation bore an even worse deformity as they followed the arc
through alcoholism, unemployment, depression, and suicide, but
even they were not the worst cases—
a presence in a cave no one would speak to or touch
—as a legion emerged from this forgotten reservation and
strode the earth looking as if fire had melted parts of their faces.
“I trust this mining required an environmental impact study
before it could go ahead.”
“Several of them. It took almost ten years from the time we
located the deposits to the start of mining. You can imagine how
eager we were.”
“Indeed. How kind of you to discuss your plans with us so
thoroughly.”
“You can’t pin that on me,” Andrew retorted. “We really
wanted a partnership. We made several attempts at a dialogue with
your tribal elders, and you treated us like a bunch of greedy tycoons
it was beneath your dignity to talk to.”
“Well, what would the upshot have been? ‘Vacate your ances-
tral homeland, and we’ll give you a bunch of Wal-Mart coupons’?”
Andrew sipped his coffee and looked into the blue distances of
the old man’s eyes.
“You know something, Mr. Sob Story? Your tribe—yes, your
tribe—happens to have been one of the predator nations of the nine-
teenth century. Some of those Navajos won’t speak to you today,
you murdered and butchered so many of them, and that’s partly why
your tribal name means enemy.”
“Mr. McGahan,” the elder replied, “if I didn’t know better, I’d
say you are suggesting that we got what we deserved.”
“Oh, far be it from me to be so vindictive about those Navajos
you massacred. The bottom line: There’s not much you can do here,
chum.”

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“It is not wise of you to insult my powers further.”
“Then I’d like to offer you some money.”
At the end of a dim elongated chamber, Andrew stood under
the gaze of forty sullen eyes, loathe to acknowledge what some of
them suspected about the mine’s future. Andrew hardly wanted to
suggest that the time was at hand to dig under the existing pits, an
operation that would require new equipment costing more than
$30 million and new licenses. The new phase of mining would yield
maybe three-fifths of the amount of gold extracted annually from
the pits up until a few years ago. If they stopped now, and thought
at some future date of resuming mining, they would have to go
through the whole rigmarole again, doing new impact studies, ap-
plying for new licenses and permits, and building more facilities for
the mine’s personnel, who would initiate a fresh round of talks over
the usual labor concerns.
Before Andrew was five minutes into his endorsement of
mining under the pits, Ms. Gleason stuck her head in and an-
nounced a call he had to take—now.
The convoy plodded further in the infinity of dust and sage-
brush.
“They almost had us back there. I don’t think we can stop,”
Bill Gorman said.
“I’m dying. God damn it, this is hell,” someone else whined.
“I’m sooo thirsty.”
“Executive decision, we keep going till the other side of those
mesas a couple thousand yards from here,” Andrew said.
“Is it true you met that old guy in person—met him at a diner
somewhere downtown?”
“I was facing a rape charge. I wanted to nip any further con-
troversy in the bud, but the guy . . . Christ, I don’t know what I was
thinking at that point.”
The crowds were swelling again, the masses that gathered and
spilled every which way like the elemental forces in A Tale of Two
Cities, whose author intentionally blurred images of natural and
human storms. Andrew’s mind kept circling back to this horror,
when the dog that he saw getting trampled became a lady, and her

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screams made the crowd more excited, and then he thought of head-
lines that clarified how this was no fantasy, and then he had the
vision of people tearing her apart and parading through the avenues
with her privates mounted on spikes. The crowd was a force, the
crowd would overflow and trample any challenge from the streets
or the terraces or the courtyards.

The cannon roared—no, he was confused now, it must have
been especially powerful fireworks—and more screams came as the
crowd spilled outward from its core in all directions under a sky that
shifted from hot blood to oceans of sorrow. Patriotism, progress,
the state, the anti-state, it’s all here in Paris, here before your eyes
in terrifying color, consuming bodies like a mad rampaging ogre.

At last, something was coming into focus a few hundred yards
ahead. A building, a tavern of some kind shimmered in the haze,
promising all that Andrew and the others craved. Andrew, Bill, Mat-
thias, and Sarah entered the musty space and took seats at one of
the humble tables between the wall draped with a flag of the state of
Arizona and the wall where mites eddied in the light that had finally
begun to wane. Andrew rose and strode over to the counter.

When the girl emerged from the back, she was terse in the
manner of a surly cashier girl abruptly given more responsibility
than she could handle. But there was no denying the appeal of her
scarlet hair which coursed gently over her right shoulder like the
blood of an angel whose death was ordained to be beautiful. There
were a couple of faint freckles on the curves of either soft cheek, and
her teeth were postcard-perfect.

“I know how much they need it.”
“Then what the hell took you so long?”
The woman gave him a coy look, which Andrew scarcely had
a chance to appreciate before his colleagues had drinks in front of
them and he was following the woman up the stairs. Minutes later
they were in bed, a breeze coming through the beige-colored win-
dows as Andrew’s whole body tensed in anticipation of the moment
of release. Then her hand found its way, and they were kissing, two
dry mouths pressing awkwardly together, and her hand was moving
rapidly, but it was just mechanically jerking him back and forth, like

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someone ramming a seat belt into and out of a buckle, and he felt so
dry and hot and tired and could not stay erect. Andrew kicked her
to the floor, and with both feet crushed the mocking smile that had
played about her lips. He jumped up and down on the bloody heap.

Then he went downstairs and joined the others, and they
started off again.

Maybe the Apaches would find him, or perhaps in their mind
they already had. He was no longer upset with the pursuit, he was
eminently prepared to go on.

Michael Washburn is a Brooklyn-based writer and journalist. His
short stories have appeared in numerous journals and magazines
including Green Hills Literary Lantern, Rosebud, Adelaide, Weird
Fiction Review, New Orphic Review, Stand, Still Point Arts Quar-
terly, Lakeview Journal, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Bryant Lit-
erary Journal, Meat for Tea, Marathon Literary Review, Prick of
the Spindle, and other publications. Michael is the author of an ac-
claimed cover story in the Philadelphia City Paper, entitled “Home
and Abroad.” He is the author of a previous short fiction collection,
Scenes from the Catastrophe (2016).

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The Unicorn, The Mystery

By Janet Mason

“There is too much blood.”
The child pointed to the red blood dripping down my white

side and to the gash in the side of the dog that my horn had gouged.
I do not normally hurt other animals – or humans for that matter
– but the dog belonged to the men who had trapped and cornered
me with their long javelins.

“That man is bad. I can see it in his eyes,” continued the child.
The child had a point. The man’s eyes are flat and glittering. Even
as he points his javelin toward my head, you know that this kill – if it
comes to pass – will not be enough for him. He will want more. I can
see this but even now I still wonder – why would anyone want to cap-
ture me? Why didn’t they just leave me alone? Was I that important?
To distract myself from being bored, I watch the groups of
people that pass through this room.
Today, the most interesting person in the room is small and
is wearing a shiny and long magenta dress. I’ve heard little girls so
adorned called princesses. But really they are imitating a time long
gone, and they are re-living a myth. It’s true that in my day prin-
cesses lived in castles. But little girls were not passive. They had to
be bred to be passive. The myth-makers thought that they would
make future little girls passive through the repetition of fairy tales.
But young women did not dangle their long blond locks from towers
and wait for the handsome prince to come and save them. They did
not sit beautiful behind locked doors, waiting to be rescued. They
may have had to do it in secret, but many princesses developed

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their muscles. They learned to use javelins, shields and spears. They
unleashed their power – even though they were frequently opposed
and overpowered. I hear the tradition continues – despite the myth.
This little princess just may free me from the tapestry to tell you my
story. Just remember that it is a real story – not a fairy tale.

I am going to start in the middle of the story of how they cap-
tured me. I’ve always wondered myself. How was it possible? Part
of my legend and lure was that it was impossible to capture me. But
this was not always true. People have hunted my kind for all kinds
of reasons. They may have claimed that they were chasing my horn
which they thought was imbued with all types of powers. It was said
to be a cure-all for everything, including mortality – as if that could
be cured. They were especially keen on insisting that a ground up
horn from my type was an antidote to poison. This was an untruth
of course. All their reasons were untrue. They were really chasing
that which cannot be caught.

So, let me start at the beginning – or rather in the middle. Of
course, I defended myself. What other choice did I have? I see in
this tapestry, that I am cornered and there is blood. But I am still
surrounded by beauty. There is a stream flowing in front of me. On
a normal day, I would have bent my head, lowering the tip of my
horn into the stream, cleansing it so the other animals could drink.
There are a few birds: the common gray goshawk, the noble falcon
with its long wings who is not taking any notice of the hunters be-
hind me as it stares down at the stream, and several types of ducks,
including the mallard with its regal white ring around its neck. Far
in the background, at the top of the tapestry, is the pomegranate tree
I have just eaten a ripe fruit from before I wandered away. To tell
you the truth I was savoring some fermented fruits on the ground –
which always makes me feel a little giddy. That may be why I didn’t
see the hunters come up behind me until it was almost too late. My
hindquarters are raised. The person who did the drawing for the
tapestry maker caught me between galloping away – I was poised to
jump over the stream – and the moment when I realized that I had
to give a swift kick, with both of my rear legs, to the hunter behind
me. He was so close that I could feel the steely wind from his javelin

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on my rear quarters. As I mentioned, I am not usually aggressive.
But I do like to be alone and it seemed that these hunters, suddenly
surrounding me, with their javelins, bugles, and dogs, wanted to
disturb my solitude – and more.

I am surrounded by flowers: white lilies, wild red roses, St.
Mary’s thistle and my favorite, the pungent stock gillyflower. I can
smell their mingled sweet and spicy scent. I see the blurred colors
of lavender, pink and white as I gallop by. Nonetheless, I could still
tell that this throng of hunters, that was gaining on me, meant to
do me harm.

Now that I have time to really look at the scene, I see that most
of the men are wearing brown cloaks atop red tunics. Three of the
men are wearing shiny blue cloaks that are crinkled like crushed velvet.
All are wearing hats. Some are simple hats – more than a few are red,
others brown — perched on their heads. One man, standing in the
back, the man with a bugle hanging on him, is wearing a fancy red hat
with a feather plume coming from its brim. He is holding his javelin
straight up with the wooden pole near the ground. He looks down,
musing. A poet, perhaps? He appears to be someone who thinks he is
above the fray. Given his fancy dress – and the fact that there was al-
ways a hierarchy, he could be a representative of the King. It is said that
the King represents God. If it is true – as I’ve heard it said – that I was
a symbol of the son of God, then why would He want me captured?
Wouldn’t He want me left alone to be part of the beauty of nature?
There is so much in this world that doesn’t make sense.

I was in the grounds of the abbey. I was drawn there because
there seems to be more room for solitude. The village inside the
stone walls of the abbey was quieter and the people more contem-
plative. There was a church and a pig trough. The well was frequently
unattended, so I could drink to my heart’s delight. And there were
more likely to be virginal maidens here – especially in the nun’s
quarters – than other places. In the village that I had to pass through
to get here, there were no virginal maidens at all. I had wandered
into the burial ground, thinking that I could find some solitude. But
then I had to flee from the people living there in makeshift tents and
women plying their wares – and I do mean all of their wares.

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At the top left of the tapestry, behind the trees, the cherry, the
pomegranate, the walnut, the bushy oak, is a castle in miniature.
On the middle tower, a red triangular roof that appears tiny in the
distance flies an equally tiny flag. Perhaps the castle is within view
of the abbey to remind the holy ones – even the Bishop – that they
work for the King.
I have to admit that I was afraid of the hunters. I was especially
concerned about their intent to invade my solitude. But I was not
fearful of going to the castle, because I heard that the princess there
– the king’s only daughter – was a warrior princess. She was a beau-
tiful and virginal maiden. I thought that surely, she would save me.
At the very top of the tapestry is a clear blue sky that has never
seen smokestacks. The air was pure then. The forests were new, the
land almost untouched by human hands and machines that were yet
to be invented. The mountains smiled upon us. Everyone believed
that I existed. It was undeniable that the earth was as alive as you or
I. I could see the breath of trees – the vibration of everything.
I was found and captured – my story stitched into the warp
and weft of centuries. Most of the threads are common and natural
such as linen and cotton. But some of the threads are metallic. The
glitter is magic. It is not only the magic of my life but of yours too.
These are the years that led to yours. There were so many javelins
coming toward me that I couldn’t stop to wonder then. But I do
now. Who struck the final blow – if indeed there was one? Was it my
human friend? I think of the monk as my friend, because he was the
closest I’ve ever gotten to having a human friend. (I’ll tell you about
him later.) I’m not saying that I was above reproach. Perhaps no
one is ever truly innocent. Looking back on that day, I realized that
many wanted me dead. But I did not understand why – or perhaps
I should say I refused to.
To tell you the truth, I never thought of myself as dying. Some
say it is inevitable, but perhaps I was too vain. I thought that what
happened to all other beings wouldn’t necessarily happen to me.
Perhaps I never did die. I am here talking to you, right?
You will find that I am the creature written about in holy
books, and the one associated with evil.

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You will find that I am the rareness that is everywhere.
I am many. I am one.
I desire to be alone – yet I am always with you.
Wise men have written that I cannot be taken alive. Others
say I am dead.
Worse, others deny that I ever existed.
Why do you belittle me, when I am wiser than thought?
I am the revered and the scorned one
I am the one who is always seen and the invisible one.
I am your purity, your hallucinations run wild.
I am said to represent your salvation – with my one horn.
But I existed long before this was said.
My will extends further into the future than you can see.
I am in the clouds above you.
I am the darkness in the woods.
I was captured, but I am free.
I answer to no man.
Even as you deny me, I am you.

Holly Blossoms

There I was one morning savoring the yellow flower nestled between
the jagged green leaves of a sow’s ear. The hunters were safely behind
me. I still didn’t think their gathering had anything to do with me.
Perhaps hunters’ gatherings never really have anything to do with
the animal they are hunting. It’s likely the men were just using the
group as an excuse to get together. They wanted to be in each other’s
company. They told their wives that they were going out to hunt a
stag or a fox. They made it sound manly. But I surmised it was just
an excuse to dress in fancy clothes and impress each other. I could
tell that they were hunters. Three of them were carrying javelins, in-
cluding the two men with the plumed hats. They had hounds. But I
thought they were hunting what they usually hunted, a stag or a fox.

I looked up from my flower and saw a stag nearby. His shining
brown eyes elongated his face. The large dark holes of his shiny
nostrils quivered.

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Above his head were two long antlers. They were so thick that,
at first, I thought they were tree branches. His neck was long, thick,
and straight, strong enough to hold up his majestic head.
I thought better of yelling to get his attention. It wasn’t digni-
fied. I spit out the remnants of the flower and approached the stag
formally.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The stag was sniffing some small white blossoms on a holly
bush. He was so absorbed that he did not seem to hear me at first. I
did not blame him. I knew the holly blossoms were sweet.
I repeated myself.
“Are you talking to me?” The stag swung his majestic head in
my direction.
I nodded.
Perhaps he was older than I thought and had hearing problems.
I spoke loudly:
“I wanted to warn you – I spied a group of hunters nearby. It
looks like they are organizing a hunting party. Probably, they are
looking for someone like you.”
The stag just yawned.
“The men are dressed up – and they have javelins and hounds,”
I said.
“Hounds?”
I seemed to have gotten his attention.
“There are four of them on leashes. I suspect they will not be
on their leashes for long,” I conjectured.
“But they know who their masters are. Dogs will always be
subservient to men.” The stag sneered disdainfully as he spoke.
“That’s true,” I replied. “But it’s also true that they can sniff
us out.”
The stag nodded. “But there are always men organizing a
hunting party – or at least that’s what they call it. It might be a party
to them. But I can’t be bothered,” said the stag, his look of disdain
changing to one of boredom.
“You say that now,” I replied. “But later you will change your
tune.”

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The stag turned a baleful eye on me.
“How do you know they aren’t looking for you?” he asked –
perhaps prophetically.
I looked back at him without blinking and said: “I avoid all men
even though I’ve heard that some deny my existence. Why would the
hunting party be searching for something they might not find?”
“Why do they do anything?” asked the stag.

“The Unicorn in Captivity”

I’ve been looking at this tapestry for eons and really don’t under-
stand it. I would scratch my head if I could. I’ve even read the
sign next to the tapestry — several times. It reads, “The Unicorn in
Captivity.” The sign doesn’t make any sense. I would never permit
myself to live in captivity. Even if someone tried to force me, the
circular fence around me is too low. I could simply walk over it. I
wouldn’t even have to jump. The chain that’s attached to the wide
collar around my neck is unbelievable. Why, I could break that
chain with one jerk of my neck — as if I would ever allow anyone
to put a collar around my neck!

It is the same scene that I saw the young wife weaving in her
little house in the clearing. The only difference is now it is com-
plete. Now I am sitting under a pomegranate tree. The tree has some
thin initials around its thin trunk. I’ve heard it said that the initials
(which are written in a thin script that makes it nearly impossible to
make out) represent the first letters of the names of the people who
first owned the tapestries. But those people seem to have gone into
obscurity. I heard one tour guide say that the tapestries were done
by unknown artists for unknown royalty and several people in the
group snickered. I would snicker with them if I could because it is
ridiculous to think that ownership of the tapestries — or of anything
for that matter — actually meant anything. The tapestries are all
about ME. To see my purity and to experience the awe and grace of
their own purity and goodness is why people flock to my room and
marvel at MY images.

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Now that I look at the tapestry again, I see that the tree doesn’t
really look like a pomegranate tree. I have heard so many group
leaders say that it is a pomegranate tree that my image is under,
that I just took what they said as fact. But the trunk is tall, thin and
bare — not gnarled and hidden in a bushy clump of leaves like most
pomegranate trees.
There are no ripe red orbs — the kind that usually catch my
eye. They are not hanging from the tree. But I see that there are
pale yellow pink buds high up in the centers of the clusters of the
leaves. Maybe these are meant to symbolize pomegranates that hav-
en’t yet grown or ripened. Logic would have it that the tree has not
dropped any ripened and fermenting fruits on the ground. This is
the only way that I could be domesticated — for a time. Because if
I had drunk from too many fermented pomegranates, I most likely
would be writhing around on my back and would not have noticed
if someone built a little fence around me. But there is no red stain
around my mouth to indicate that I have been drinking from fer-
mented pomegranates. And I — or the image of me — is sitting
upright, with my four legs on the ground, and my head erect and
horn leading up to the bottom of the so-called pomegranate tree.
The little round wooden fence is not much wider than me and in the
background is the green grass with wildflowers everywhere.
I recognize the flowers — the sweet violet, the primrose, the
carnation with its pink petals, the startlingly blue cornflower, the
purple iris, and the wild orchid faded with time. Perhaps it is the
orchid that I am supposed to identify with — for I was once wild
and free and now appear faded and tamed with time.
But this is not true. I am still wild and free. Looking at this tap-
estry, I can only conclude that someone made up the scene. The image
came from someone’s imagination — so it is real to them and them
only. They must have imagined that I could be captured, but that I
would never die. On the latter point they were right. But they also must
have imagined that I could be someone’s pet. No doubt they thought
that this tapestry would have to please whoever was paying for it.
I have no memory of what happened when they carried me to
the castle. I do not know if the King did indeed reward the hunters.

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Maybe I blacked out. Perhaps whatever happened was so awful that
I blocked out memory entirely. Perhaps, I escaped to some moun-
taintop where I am currently masquerading with two horns as a ram
or some other creature.

I may be other places, but I am here too. I have been pondering
this tapestry for a long time, but suddenly I realize something. I am
sitting in a circle of the wooden fence. When people come into this
room, they gaze at me sitting in the circle of that wooden fence.

Perhaps when they are gazing at the image of me, they have
entered eternity with me in that instant.

What they probably don’t realize is that they are standing in
another circle of sorts — in this room. It is rectangular but, but it
is still a circle in a way. They are standing in the circle of my seven
tapestries. These tapestries prove that I exist. There was a time when
almost everyone believed in me. Remember that, if you believe in
me, and someone scoffs at you and says I don’t exist. You don’t have
to tell them that you are right. In fact, insisting that you are right
about anything, might make me go away.

As to who killed me, perhaps it is no one since I am still
talking to you. But maybe some did kill me. It could have been
my young friend. But if he was not pure enough to see me — at
one point — then you never would have seen me either. Maybe
I was killed — or thought to have been killed — by the fear of
difference. Or perhaps it was importance — or the need for the
perception of it. I do not believe that importance is real for if we
are all important — and we are — then no one is more important
than anyone else. If we examine the need to be better than someone
else, you will find that the only reason to desire importance, is that
you feel unimportant.

I imagine that my young friend the monk descended into guilt
– which there is no return from – and that the Bishop faded into
obscurity — despite his ruby ring and his sun-dial bracelet. As for
the hunters, they are no more at fault than their obedient hounds.

The humans are gone, but I am still here. Don’t get me wrong,
I realize that I am not on the physical plane. And there are things
that I miss about this beautiful earth that I love. Maybe what I loved

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most is the sudden and unexpected delight of fireflies on a warm
summer night.

I hope to come back some day. Maybe the warrior princess
will come rescue me. I have not given up hope. And neither should
you. But do not wait for the warrior princess to rescue you. Be her.

I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves

Janet Mason is an award-winning creative writer, teacher, mar-
keting professional and blogger for The Huffington Post. Her book,
Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters, published by Bella
Books in 2012, was chosen by the American Library Association for
its 2013 Over the Rainbow List. Tea Leaves also received a Goldie
Award. She is the author of three poetry books.

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The Assistant

By Andrea Lorenzo

Tomorrow is my last day on Earth. I know, you must be thinking
how come I know that. Well, it’s a long story; I should start from
the beginning.

A little more than a year ago, I started working as a personal
assistant for Ms. Ornella Genovese, the famous ufologist. For those
few of you that don’t know her, let me tell you: she’s not easy.
She’s temperamental, rude, narcissistic and obsessive compulsive;
but when it comes to UFOs, she’s one of the best out there.

I landed this job, thanks to the cousin of an aunt of the spouse
of the uncle of the father in love of Ornella’s gardener, Pedro. Ap-
parently, Ms. Genovese was close to a major breakthrough and
needed an assistant to take care of the small things.

The ufologist hired me immediately. She recognized that I was
qualified for the job since I was fresh out of seven years of studying
extra terrestrial life, flora and fauna with non other than Ignacio de
la Pampucha, the Mexican cook that was taken to Saturn for four
years by a group of marginal aliens that wanted to study him.

The position required me to move to “Aliena Ubriata”, Ms.
Genovese’s hundred acres state close to Virginia City, Nevada.

When I arrived for the first time to the state I was struck
by its beauty. From the entrance gate the silver firs lined road
traveled around ten minutes and ended at the circular driveway
of a magnificent mansion: a “puppy” replica of the Italian Villa
Mondragone.

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The place counted with an interior fountain with dragon
statues, an indoor pool and high chimneys with Baroque masks. It
was built with natural materials, so every surface was a pleasure to
touch, from smooth and cold marble to warm and sleek wood to
rough and porous stones; everything told a story to my senses. I par-
ticularly liked Ornella’s study where the warm but sturdy mahogany
wood library held hundredths of books dating from the 500 BCE.
The mansion’s seven bedrooms had private top to bottom
white marble bathrooms, wooden floors with busy patterns rugs,
high ceilings with beautiful frescoes depicting mythical scenes, tall
windows with golden intricate cornices and dark red velvet drap-
eries and many of them had their own fireplace. Not my bedroom
though, but I preferred it that way because I come from a long line of
pyromaniacs, and, unless I’d do like my cousin Paolo that managed
his mania by working for Zambelli Fireworks, I rather no to have
any fire around me. I don’t trust myself.
The house was a bit too Rococo décor-wise for my taste, but
beautiful.
Aside from Ms. Genovese, the cook, the maid, and the gar-
dener, Pedro, nobody else was living there, so the huge mansion
seemed empty. But, I did appreciate that as well, since to stop the
pyromaniac ways, my mom and dad raised me in a submarine, and
I’m a bit of a hermit because of it.
From the start, Ms. Genovese assigned me more chores than
any human being could handle. She had a pretty busy schedule, and I
had to be with her at all times. My days began at four thirty am when
I milked the cows and whipped the cream for Ornella’s morning
bath, ended around nine thirty pm right after reading to her the lab
reports for the day, and had every hour in between filled with tasks.
I’m not going to lie, it was hard, but I was thrilled to be working
with such a legend. Although, in retrospect, I don’t know what good
is going to do for my career after tomorrow. Talking about that let
me continue with the story.
My days were filled with the weirdest chores. For example to
name just a few, I had to toss the multicolor paperclips to make sure
each color was evenly mixed with the others, make Origami Bud-

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dhas with the milk cartons to place in strategic corners of the house
and count that whatever food Ms. Genovese was going to eat would
plus even numbers multiple of three, and she loved rice!

No matter what, during the day I was busy, but each night at
ten pm, Ornella sent me to my room and she went to the basement.
She spent hours in there; I wasn’t allowed to disturb her under any
circumstance.

Even though I was always exhausted, most nights I kept awake
for sometime wondering what the ufologist was doing down there.
I speculated that maybe she was building a space ship. Or perhaps
she had a multipurpose radiofrequency transmitter and was talking
to extraterrestrials? After all in the underground aliens’ fan clubs
she was unofficially nicknamed Ornella “Flying Saucer” Genovese.

After a while, my curiosity won and, one morning, while Ms.
Genovese was taking her daily whipped cream bath, I sneaked into
the basement. The door was locked, but I knew that the key was in
the study inside the mouth of the embalmed aye-aye paperweight.
Before opening, I checked where Pedro was and, as usual, he was
cutting the same bushes next to the basement’s tiny window. At the
time, I wasn’t sure if Pedro had an obsession for shaping those box-
woods into an ET like creature, or if it was Ornella the one that had
asked him to do that, but the guy was always there, as if the twenty
acres garden surrounding the house didn’t need his attention.

Careful not to make the wooden stairs squeak, I went down.
My eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness; I didn’t want to
put the lights on. When I was able to focus, I was disappointed.
The place was pretty empty just had some useless crap: old furni-
ture, a treadle sewing machine, lamps, a toilet seat, and piles of old
UFO magazines. I looked everywhere. There was nothing that would
explain why Ornella was spending so much time in there. After
making sure everything was in the same place where I had founded
it, I went back upstairs more curious than ever.

I decided that I was going to wait to work up the courage to
ask Ms. Genovese and left the whole thing alone in the meantime.

Month after month passed, and I became indispensable to
the ufologist, and more knowledgeable than ever. She didn’t know

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much about flora and fauna of Saturn so I taught her about “cow-
codiles” and “turtraffes”. I was thriving at my job; but still, Ornella
didn’t tell me what was she working on.

The curiosity was killing me; until one day that I was reading
aloud a lab report that had some kind of blood test in it and I real-
ized that Ornella had an extraterrestrial being in the basement.

I was so excited that I couldn’t stop myself from asking a tril-
lion questions.

“What kind of being you have down there? Is an animal? Or
you have the tree that bears chickens? Can I see it?” I remember
telling her just before she closed the door in my face.

“Please let me see it. Mr. de la Pampucha taught me a lot about
extraterrestrial life, I could be useful.” I begged banging the frame.

After many shameless pleads on my part, Ornella opened the
door.

“Ok Sylvester, I’m going to allow you to come in but on one
condition: you just observe. Don’t say a word. We will talk about
this tomorrow morning, but now, just be quiet. Capito?”

“Yes, caipirinha.”
Ms. Genovese looked at me annoyed, “Stop trying to answer
me in your Brazilian cocktails version of Italian.”
“Capeta…, sorry. I understand.”
Silent, we went down the stairs to the basement. Wait till Ig-
nacio finds out about this! I thought.
The place was exactly as it was when I had sneaked in months
ago. At that moment I thought that Ornella was making fun of me. I
was about to say something when I saw her lift the old toilet seat, slid
it into a narrow compartment on the side of the treadle machine and
push the pedal six times with her right foot. I heard a noise behind me
and, as I turned around, the wall opened and an elevator appeared.
I stared at it mesmerized; it was surreal to see a top of the line
lift constructed entirely of stainless steel panels and illuminated by
LED rings coming out of the wall.
“Ok, Sylvester, andiamo!” Ornella took me out of my reverie.
I jumped into the elevator with her; she punched a code and
placed her left hand palm on a touch screen. The doors closed and

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the lift started going down. And down. And down. If I wouldn’t
know better, I would have thought we were going to come out in
hell, or China.

When it finally stopped, the doors opened to a room also made
of stainless steel and LED ring lights. On one of the walls there were
several white jumpsuits. Ms. Genovese gave me one and I put it on.
She did the same with hers, and, just as she had done in the elevator,
she used a touch screen to open one of the walls. I shivered; I don’t
know if it was just the odd situation, but I was pretty cold.

The place was pitch black; I couldn’t see anything. Slowly, my
eyes started to adjust and I could see some shapes, big rocks and tiny
sand dunes. Farther away, something was glowing.

I shadowed Ornella for thirty yards and started to feel warmer
and warmer. It was extremely hot down there, and I understood why
my suit had such a cold cooling system incorporated to it.

Suddenly, a figure revealed itself from the shadows, it had a
long dress made out of white glow in the dark plastic squares; some-
thing like the sixties’ Paco Rabanne dress that my grandma used to
have. I stopped on my tracks; not because I was scared, but because
this creature was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. Everything
about her exuded femininity, her moves were gentle, almost as if she
was dancing to classical music sounding only in her head. She looked
human, except for her three sumptuous breasts, and the hundreds of
thin middle fingers with red long nails that she had coming out of
her scalp instead of hair. Her face was perfect. She had teal eyes, pink
lips, and dark olive skin. There was something extremely alluring
about her energy; I felt compelled to hug her and love her forever.
Also the fingers on her head were beckoning me over.

Ms. Genovese saw the effect the alien had on me and inter-
vened right before I would give myself up into her arms.

Enter Ramona, as Ms. Genovese addressed her: “How are you
today, Ramona?”

The woman looked at her and then at me and smiled broadly.
Her teeth were white and black, like a piano keyboard. Just as I
wondered if she could play music with them, she spoke: “I – am –
fine. Who – he?”

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Her voice was deep and manly. I didn’t expect that, she sounded
like my uncle Domenico who had sixty years of tar and smoke piled on
his vocal cords. Was she a he? Or was he a she? Or both? I didn’t know
what to think; it was hard to combine the ultra feminine demeanor
with the James Earl Jones voice. I shook the thoughts off my head. I was
in front of an extraterrestrial. This was major; my heart was pounding
faster than the 2CELLO’s version of “Welcome to the jungle.”
“He is my personal assistant, Sylvester.”
“Nice- meet- you.” Ramona was looking at me.
“Same here.” I said, and immediately regretted it because my
boss gave me a fulminating look.
“We are not going to stay tonight. We will come back to-
morrow. Just wanted to bring you this, you know, for what we
talked about.” Ms. Genovese handed the lady a large roll of drawing
paper and a box with one hundred and sixty colored pencils. “Good
night, Ramona.”
“Thank- good- night- Or-nella- and Syl- vete.”
We left, and on the way up I asked my boss another million
questions.
Is a she or a he? Or neither? Where is she from? How old is she?
How long you had her down there? Can she come up? And so on.
With an abnormal amount of patience, Ornella answered my
questions. Ramona was a female as far as she could tell, although the
voice was deceiving. She was from Charon one of Pluto’s moons.
No, she couldn’t come up because her civilization lived in cities
build two miles underground, and exposure to the sun could burn
her. She found Ramona unconscious inside a spacecraft that crashed
in the Indian Ocean and was recovered by her team off the coast of
Australia two years ago.
Ms. Genovese also told me that from the next day I was going
to spend time with Ramona every day. Ornella was going to super-
vise but I was going to be left alone with the beautiful alien. How
amazing!
For the following three months I was with Ramona every af-
ternoon for four hours. I taught her English and, soon enough, she
was talking about philosophy with me. She told me about her planet

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and, to show me, she drew amazing pictures. The drawings were true
to size and so realistic, that, after she hung them on the walls of the
cave, it felt as if we were in her planet down there. I told her about
me and Earth. We fell in love; she was the most wonderful woman
I’ve ever met.

The only sad thing was that every evening Ms. Genovese would
come and ask me to leave her alone with Ramona. It was hard to be
apart from her. The hours of the day that I didn’t spend with her
became more and more dreadful as time went by.

One afternoon when I came down I found Ramona crying.
Between sobs, she explained that although she loved me and liked
spending time with me, she missed her planet. I understood that as
long as she was far from her people, she wasn’t going to be com-
pletely happy. I knew Ornella was keeping her kind of captive for
her own selfish reasons. I loved her so much I told her I was going
to help her to go back to her planet.

That day, Ramona took me farther into the cave and showed
me a small device. She explained to me that it was kind of an inter-
stellar cell phone. She needed to charge it to be able to call home,
but the charger was in the spacecraft.

I knew Ms. Genovese had kept the ship not too far from where
Ramona was. We found it, charged the phone overnight, and, the
next day, she called her brother. I don’t know what she said because
they talked in a strange language, but they both got really emotional
and cried from happiness as soon as they saw each other on the de-
vice’s screen. The funny thing is that her brother looked like Conan
the Barbarian but sounded like Cyndi Lauper.

When Ramona hung up the phone, she looked at me and said:
“He’s coming to pick me up. It would take exactly a month in
Earth time for him to get here. Come with me, I love you and can’t
imagine my life without you.”

“I love you too, but… me going there? How could I survive?”
“We have a city that is ‘Earth like’. There are other humans
there. Have you heard about all the people that disappeared in the
Bermuda’s Triangle? They live with us, very happy I’d say.”
“Really? That’s great. Let me think a bit about this.”

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That night I didn’t sleep at all. The idea of leaving Earth was
scary, but to do that to be with Ramona, was very appealing. I
weighed the pros and cons and I realized that I wasn’t so happy
anyway, and could use a change of scenery.
The next day, as soon as I saw Ramona I told her: “I love you,
and want to be with you. I’m coming to your planet.”
We spent the whole month preparing for our trip. We kept our
plan secret and made sure nobody knew.
That brings us to yesterday. When I went to see her, I was
nervous. Hey, I’m leaving Earth for good the day after tomorrow,
I thought. She seemed to have read my mind because, she told me
that if for any reason I wouldn’t be happy over there, she’ll make
sure to bring me back.
We were talking about that, when we heard a strange noise
coming from the darker side of the cave. Suddenly, a big hole
opened in the wall and Pedro, the gardener, came out of it. He had
a machine that looked like a string trimmer on steroids; apparently,
he had used it to dig all his way down.
“Pedro? Is that you?”
“Yes, Mr. Strachiatella. I came here to save you. You can’t go
with her; she’ll lure you to your death.” He spitted something that
looked like a piece of root.
“Pedro, Pedro, what are you doing here again?” Ramona’s
voice sounded deeper than thunder.
“What’s going on? Do you know each other?” I asked con-
cerned.
“Ramona, I see you’d learned to talk properly; but shut up! Syl-
vester, I’m a Peruvian ufologist. I used to work for Heleno Campao,
the man that discovered that the geoglyphs in the Nazca desert are
the work of an extraterrestrial civilization. I’ve been following this
one for a long time; this time she won’t get away.” Pedro threatened
Ramona with the trimmer. “Probably she says she loves you and
wants you. That’s exactly what happened to Heleno, he went away
with her; never heard from him again. I’m sure she murdered him;
she is the black widow of space. Two years ago, I found out she was
back for more, so I came to stop her.”

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Ramona’s head middle fingers straightened all at once.
“Pedro, I already told you: women in my planet look all the
same. Your friend must have gone with Violeta; she went to Nazca.”
“I don’t believe you. Hi-yah.” Pedro stepped into attack posi-
tion flying a nunchaku over his head. For the longest five minutes
the guy tried to handle the weapon correctly, instead he ended up
with a black eye, a swollen lip and an awful blow to his testicles.
When he spoke again, he sounded like Ramona’s brother; that gave
me an idea.
“Come on Pedro, there is no need for that. Look, let’s call
Ramona’s planet, ask about your friend and we’ll go from there.”
The thing was that the gardener was able to plant enough suspicion;
I wanted to know who was telling the truth, Ramona was certainly
alluring enough to have any man wrapped around her finger, (or
fingers in her case).
The three of us walked to the spacecraft. Pedro was the last one;
he had the trimmer pointing to Ramona the whole way.
“Ok, so here we’re. Please Ramona my love could you make
the call?”
“Of course, Sylvester.” She grabbed the interstellar cell and it was
dead. “Out of battery again.” She shrugged. “We will have to charge it.”
“How come? It was full yesterday and you haven’t use it at all.”
To me it was suspicious.
“Well, I was bored last night and prank-called all my cousins.
They think I’m dead; I told them I was calling them from my tomb,
ha ha!”
“Ramona why did you do that? You need that phone for your
brother to find us.”
“Sorry, it only takes a day to charge it.”
“I’m telling you Sylvester, she’s the devil! She already tried to
seduce me with her melodious voice and all those fingers poking in
all the right places mmm…” Pedro seemed distracted for a second
but he snapped out of it fast. “Don’t let her trick you I beg you.
You’ll end up like my boss!”
“Enough with the lies Pedro! Stop whining and go do some
gardening.” Ramona mocked him.

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“Ok, everyone calm down. Ms. Genovese is about to come
here, so please lets wait till tomorrow after calling your planet. Ca-
pella?” I said.
The three of us shook hands. Pedro left the same way he had
come and I went to my bedroom.
We only had to wait until Ramona was going to show Pedro
she was saying the truth and after, my beautiful alien and I can leave
and be happy forever, I thought.
This afternoon I went to the basement as every day not to raise
Ornella’s suspicion. When I got there, Pedro was already waiting
for me.
“Let’s go to make the call.” I said.
The three of us went to the spacecraft and the phone was gone.
“She’s evil!” Pedro took the nunchaku again but this time just
held it from the handles.
“Are you looking for this?” Ornella appeared with the phone
in her hands.
“My love, why did you take that?” Ramona asked.
“I didn’t take it, she did.” I answered.
“She’s talking to me idiot. She loves me and is taking me with
her.” Ornella said.
“No, she doesn’t, she’s taking me. She loves me!” Pedro
grabbed Ramona from the waist. As he was trying to tie her, her
head fingers were poking him in the eyes.
“Wait a minute, Ramona? Is that true?” I asked.
“Only the part about she loving me!” Ornella threw sand in my
face and ran to tackle me. Blinded, I ducked just in time to avoid
her. She flu past me and hit her head on a rock.
By then, Ramona had managed to subdue Pedro and he was
also unconscious.
I looked at her and was ready to run away when she said:
“You’re the only one I love. I just told them I loved them so they
would leave us alone. They think my brother is coming the day after
tomorrow instead of tomorrow. By the time they figure that I lied,
we will be long gone. Please love, you are the only one. We don’t
have time for this.”

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“So you love me?”
“Yes, like no other Sylvester.”
After that, Ramona asked me to wire the basement to set it on
fire before we would leave, so nor Ornella or Pedro could follow us.
For a wannabe pyromaniac as myself that request was like asking a
coyote to be in charge of a herd.
I put a haystack against the farthest wall, drenched it with
gasoline and put a long wick attached to it so it would give us time
to put the fire on and safely escape.
I kissed Ramona and came to my room to write this.
Now is night and I’m looking out my window, saying goodbye
to my planet. Tomorrow morning I’ll leave forever. Wait, why is the
fire alarm on? No! The bottom floor of the mansion is on fire! That
can mean only one thing: my fire went on earlier. I have to save
Ramona! As my mom’s words “Don’t play with fire” come to my
mind, I see a flying saucer outside my window. Inside there’s a man
hugging Ramona as she holds a sign: “Bye sillies.”
With tears in my eyes, I step into the balcony and see Ornella
on the balcony to my right and Pedro on the balcony to my left.
Both crying.
“The guy hugging Ramona is Heleno. He’s alive!” Pedro
screams.
And just like that, they take off and disappear from our view
in less than ten seconds. Ramona and Heleno run away together;
they fooled us all.
I look at those two and tell them: “We shouldn’t have played
with fire. Let’s run before it’s too late.”

My name is Andrea Lorenzo. I was born in Buenos Aires, Argen-
tina and I’ve been living in NY for twenty-one years. I always loved
writing. I wrote many short stories throughout my childhood and
adolescent years. But, life got busy, and for a while, I didn’t have

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the chance to write as a career. After raising two kids, becoming
a widow, working as a makeup artist for film, getting married for
a second time, and moving to NY, I finally found the time a few
years back to start writing again. I embarked into the challenging
task of writing my first novel. Throughout the process, I’ve realized
that writing fiction is my passion, the true thing that I was meant
to do in this life. Nothing compares to the feeling of giving life to
different characters, to make them experience different emotions, to
have them laugh, or cry, or be part of a community where the resi-
dents are all opera singers and spelling bee champions. All is possible
when one writes; there are no boundaries to the imagination, and
that’s what I love to do.

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Knick Knack Wars

By Brooke Reynolds

Fred opened his apartment door at Shady Maples Retirement Home
to a crime scene; someone fiddled with his knick knacks. All resi-
dents had one small end table and a smidgen of wall space to display
their memories. The halls were filled with old ceramic Christmas
villages, poodles made from plaster, and all the precious moments
of life carved out of stone. Fred stared dumbfounded at the little red
caboose of his Lionel train set, given to him by his late wife Gloria
the day his father died, back when Fred had a full head of hair. It
was now in front of the engine. Fred knew the only nimrod capable
of this level of mayhem was Albert from across the hall.

Albert was a former WWII fighter pilot and a dick, but not in
that order. His doorway was decorated with framed newspaper clip-
pings and a single metal, The Distinguishing Flying Cross. Albert
started annoying Fred with simple gestures, like flipping the sun
magnet by the door to signal Fred was awake when really, he was
asleep. This led to knocks on Fred’s door at three am from concerned
staff members. Albert the jokester. Fred hadn’t dealt with annoying
pranksters like this since boarding school more than sixty years ago.

With his crunched arthritic-ridden fingers, Fred replaced the
caboose to its rightful position. He looked at the pot of faux Black-
eyed Susans on the table with the watercolor of the same flowers on
the wall above and adjusted the painting to match the two perfectly.
One of Gloria’s last hobbies when she was wheel-chair ridden, in-
volved painting wildflowers. Black-eyed Susans were her favorite
flowers. He loved the details she captured, the fuzzy black gumdrop

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center with yellow petals that spun off like a pinwheel. Fred kissed
his shaking hand and pressed it to the painting.

The next morning, the battle raged on when Fred’s precious
painting was replaced by a painting of daffodils instead. Now the
whole display was ruined. He recognized the daffodils as Gloria’s
work too, a gift to Albert. Fred hmphed. He didn’t need his lifelong
detective skills to solve this mystery. Hiding underneath Albert’s
end table was the missing painting. Fred switched the paintings and
went about his day.

The following morning, a full-on war zone greeted Fred. His
Lionel train set laid over on its side with small paper drawings of
flames taped onto each car. His figurines, all the passengers and even
the engineer, were painted crimson. Suspended above all the chaos
hung a small model WII fighter plane, making it look like as if an
airstrike caused the derailment. Fred had enough.

He retrieved a red sharpie marker. With hunched shoulders
and slippered feet, Fred tiptoed across the hall to Albert’s door me-
morial. He lifted the framed newspaper article from the wall and
carefully removed it. A circle here and a few lines there. He replaced
the article, making sure it centered over the medal. Fred smiled.
Now, the Nazis won the war.

Brooke Reynolds is a veterinarian from Charlotte, North Carolina.
When she isn’t saving animals, she enjoys reading and writing fic-
tion. Her stories have appeared at such online and print markets as
Massacre Magazine, Fantasia Divinity, The Airgonaut, The Literary
Hatchet, Ghost Parachute, Every Day Fiction, Riggwelter, Ricky’s
Back Yard, Coffin Bell, and Ink Stains Anthology. Her story “Dr.
Google” won 2nd place in the 2016 Short Story Contest for Chan-
nillo, and her story “Bang Bang” won 2nd place in the 2018 Flash
Suite contest for Defenestrationism. You can follow her on twitter @
psubamit or check out her website reynoldswrites.org.

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