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Best short stories by the Winner, seven Shortlist Winner Nominees, and eighty-seven Finalists of the second annual Adelaide Literary Award Competition 2018 selected by Stevan V. Nikolic, editor-in-chief. THE WINNER - Toni Morgan; SHORTLIST WINNER NOMINEES - Lazar Trubman, Pam Munter, Susan Pollet, Esq., Jose Recio, Peter Freeman, Michael Washburn, Janet Mason; FINALISTS - Andrea Lorenzo, Brooke Reynolds, Heather Whited, Jack Coey, Darrell Case, Alexandra Lapointe Edward D. Hunt, M Cid D'Angelo, Richard Dokey, Michael Mohr, Scott Kauffman, Olga Pavlinova Olenich, James White, Thomas Larsen, Patty Somlo, Rita Baker, Janine Desvaux, Mark Albro, Skyler Nielsen, Rachel A.G. Gilman, Jim Zinaman, Carolyn L. Bell, Robert McKean, Royce Adams A. Elizabeth Herting, Tara Lynn Marta, John Wells, Heide Arbitter, Jeff Bakkensen, Jeffrey Ihlenfeldt, Bettina Rotenberg, Hina Ahmed, Peter Hoppock, Matthew Byerly, Tim Rodriguez Riley Bounds, Wayne Hall, Dennis Nau, Kathryn Merriam, Sam Gridley, Jonathan Maniscalco, Harold Barnes, Mattie Ward, Brenna Carroll, Barbara Bottner, Beth Mead, David Macpherson Judyth Emanuel, George Korolog, Peter Gelfan, Mary Ann Presman, Deborah Nedelman Rebekah Coxwell, Richard Klin, Ted Morrissey, Ben Rosenthal, Terry Sanville, Steve McBrearty Richard Key, Max Bayer, Amada Matei, Sydney Samone Wrigh, Ross Goldstein, Zia Marshall, Lisa Lopez Snyder, Peter K. Wehrli, Joshua Hren, Maureen Mangiardi, Carolini Cardozo Assmann D. Ruefman, Lynette Yu, Mandi N Jourdan, Masha Shukovich, Annina Lavee, Meg Paske, Emily Peña Murphey, Clay Anderson, Niikah Hatfield, Jose Sotolongo, Carl Scharwath, Kaleigh Longe Maryna Manzhola

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Published by ADELAIDE BOOKS, 2018-12-14 09:00:32

Adelaide Award Anthology 2018: SHORT STORIES, Vol. Two

Best short stories by the Winner, seven Shortlist Winner Nominees, and eighty-seven Finalists of the second annual Adelaide Literary Award Competition 2018 selected by Stevan V. Nikolic, editor-in-chief. THE WINNER - Toni Morgan; SHORTLIST WINNER NOMINEES - Lazar Trubman, Pam Munter, Susan Pollet, Esq., Jose Recio, Peter Freeman, Michael Washburn, Janet Mason; FINALISTS - Andrea Lorenzo, Brooke Reynolds, Heather Whited, Jack Coey, Darrell Case, Alexandra Lapointe Edward D. Hunt, M Cid D'Angelo, Richard Dokey, Michael Mohr, Scott Kauffman, Olga Pavlinova Olenich, James White, Thomas Larsen, Patty Somlo, Rita Baker, Janine Desvaux, Mark Albro, Skyler Nielsen, Rachel A.G. Gilman, Jim Zinaman, Carolyn L. Bell, Robert McKean, Royce Adams A. Elizabeth Herting, Tara Lynn Marta, John Wells, Heide Arbitter, Jeff Bakkensen, Jeffrey Ihlenfeldt, Bettina Rotenberg, Hina Ahmed, Peter Hoppock, Matthew Byerly, Tim Rodriguez Riley Bounds, Wayne Hall, Dennis Nau, Kathryn Merriam, Sam Gridley, Jonathan Maniscalco, Harold Barnes, Mattie Ward, Brenna Carroll, Barbara Bottner, Beth Mead, David Macpherson Judyth Emanuel, George Korolog, Peter Gelfan, Mary Ann Presman, Deborah Nedelman Rebekah Coxwell, Richard Klin, Ted Morrissey, Ben Rosenthal, Terry Sanville, Steve McBrearty Richard Key, Max Bayer, Amada Matei, Sydney Samone Wrigh, Ross Goldstein, Zia Marshall, Lisa Lopez Snyder, Peter K. Wehrli, Joshua Hren, Maureen Mangiardi, Carolini Cardozo Assmann D. Ruefman, Lynette Yu, Mandi N Jourdan, Masha Shukovich, Annina Lavee, Meg Paske, Emily Peña Murphey, Clay Anderson, Niikah Hatfield, Jose Sotolongo, Carl Scharwath, Kaleigh Longe Maryna Manzhola

Keywords: anthology,short stories,fiction

SHORT STORIES
softly, clasped tight together. Salvation was present in the habit she
wore, the words she spoke, the garden she tended and the paths
she walked. Salvation was present in her mind and in her hunger,
proving to the world that she did not need the world. Salvation is
what kept her working every day to keep the devil at bay.

She soldiered down the path back to the convent, imagining
herself as one of the old Athletes of Christ, heroically perishing in
the coliseum in a crowd of beasts. Not just beasts of the animal
kingdom, but of the Roman one as well. Pagan beasts, urging on the
slaughter of the righteous and buying themselves a seat in Hell just
as the martyrs earned themselves a seat in Heaven.

Ahead of her but on the same path, Sister Ida saw a raggedy
dog. His ears shot up in alertness as she approached, and his tail
began to wag. Sister Ida stretched out her hand to let him smell
it, and the dog tentatively but amiably came forward to lick her
hand.

“What a sweet creature of God you are!” she exclaimed, slightly
shocked at the sound of her own voice. It was hoarse from disuse,
as she often fell into long stretches of silence when contemplating
salvation.

The sister offered a piece of bread to the dog, which he first
looked at skeptically, but, driven by hunger, snatched from her hand
and ran off. She felt a certain sense of pride that she was unaccus-
tomed to: She had given another creature what he needed to live for
another day. Then she mentally reprimanded herself for indulging
in such hubris. Only God provides for his Creation. We are just His
vessels. If He had wanted that dog to die, He would not have made our
paths cross.

Sister Ida hurried into the convent so as not to be late for
evening Mass. Shuffling past the other habits she found her spot
near the altar.

“Sister, have you been denying yourself food again? You look
like it,” said Sister Adelaide.

“I have, thank you,” said Sister Ida, trying to hide her blush
and banish prideful thoughts. Regardless of her defenses, a whisper
of satisfaction drifted in.

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“If only we could all strive for such purity as you. I shall give
you a special place in my prayers today to aid you in your journey
to salvation.”
Sister Ida nodded.
The priest started Mass, the sisters bowing their heads,
kneeling, standing, kneeling, standing, crossing themselves, bowing
heads again, as if it were all some bizarre dance. The priest began
his homily:
“Only the Lord can die on the cross. Only the Lord can forgive
us our sins. Only the Lord can put Death in chains. That is the truth
we hold in our hearts as Christians, that the Lord is our one true
salvation. But oughtn’t we to show Him we are worthy of His love?
Oughtn’t we do our part in pursuing salvation?”
Sister Ida, much to her chagrin, could not give her attention
to the homily. Her thoughts were instead occupied with yearnings
for food and the pangs of hunger. She focused her entire will-
power on the homily, but it would falter as soon as her stomach
growled.
“In the days of the persecution, we could follow Christ’s path
to the very end. We could give ourselves up for the Church, and it
was a beautiful thing. But in our time, that is not an option. They
looked Death in the face, but in a way, we face a more difficult
battle. We look Life in the face.
“So what is there left for us to do? Are we living in an age without
salvation? Are we all damned because we were born too late? No, we
are not; do not doubt God like that. We face a bigger battle, like I said,
one against ourselves. To show we are worthy of salvation, we must
deny ourselves the sinful, base desires which afflict us as human be-
ings—we must transcend our humanity. We must show we are ready
for Heaven, ready to accept God by casting off all that could distract
us from Him.
“Look at Sister Ida,” the priest said, and this time she was un-
able to stop the flow of redness on her cheeks. Two thoughts snuck
in through her barrier: one of pride, and one of food. She harshly
reprimanded herself for allowing these unholy thoughts in when she
was being praised for doing just the opposite.

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“She is truly allowing herself to be a vessel of the Lord. She does
not think of hunger, she does not think of pain. She resists herself to
show the Savior that she is ready to go beyond herself.”
Sister Ida could not follow the rest of the homily. Specters of
hunger and pride whirled around her head, holding her captive and
telling her she was a fraud. Images of bread, of milk, of the garden, of
the dog, of the Eucharist, of crucifixes, of the grave floated in front of
her eyes. The more harshly she judged herself the more unrelenting
these specters became. She felt a dismal pang in her chest—how
could she be a true vessel of the Lord if her thoughts were held cap-
tive by worldly desires?
That night, the Sister resolved to strengthen her devotion. She
was going to eat less, pray more fervently and clean out her heart to
make room for Jesus. No matter the cost, she would be saved.



The room is dark, lit by candles in each corner. A table sits stolidly
in the middle of the room, wooden walls and a dirt floor, messy in
a quaint kind of way, and a large man sits at the table. A young girl,
with eyes and freckles like the man’s and startlingly black hair, sits
across from him, appearing to be in deep contemplation. She cannot
be older than twelve. There is a plate of food in front of the man and
the child. The man eats hastily while the child pushes food around
on the plate with a spoon.

“Ida, you have got to eat. Why are you not eating?”
“Pa, the priest told me the devil hides in every bite. I will not eat.
The priest told me that I would get to Heaven that way.”
“That priest is full of horse shit, Ida. How are you supposed to have
the energy to pray or do charity or do any of the things you say you want
to do if you don’t eat? Jesus ate. The apostles ate. You can’t devote your
life to God if you’re dead. I can’t bear to see you turn into a walking
corpse. Please, just eat something, Ida.”
The door opens and a shaggy gray dog patters in. Suddenly, the
room disappears and the floor falls out from under them, and Ida is sent
plummeting down, down, down to who knows where. Terror makes a

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fist in her chest as she realizes this is not real, but she does not know what
it is, and her screams are ripped from her mouth by the wind, or maybe
they are not and the wind just mirrors her fear. Objects enter her field
of vision: the dog, the Eucharist, and a Bible.

Sister Ida started awake, feeling the phantom terror still
clenched in her chest. She promptly arose, looked around to en-
sure that she had a solid grip on her surroundings, and went over
to the sink to wash her face. The water felt alive against her dry
skin. She dressed, and leaving the convent, traipsed through the
early morning darkness like a thin, gray ghost. It was far too early
for the others to be up, but she took satisfaction in going to pray
while the others slept. She immediately felt guilty because of this
self-satisfaction.

Coming to the chapel, she knelt and blessed herself before she
took a seat in one of the pews. There were always candles illuminating
the interior of the chapel, which flickered at this new presence. Drop-
ping down to her knees, she started the rosary, but to her consterna-
tion, she was unable to focus. No matter the mental barriers she put
up, thoughts of hunger crept in to plague her with images of gluttony
and sin. This was especially distressing in light of last night’s dream,
which she tried and failed to erase from her psyche.

The body and blood of Christ. The body and blood of Christ! That
is all my soul needs to live. To Hell with my body!

She finished her rosary and sat in silence for a moment. The
world seemed to hold its breath at this time of day, and Sister Ida
held hers with it.

The growing light alerted the Sister that it was time for breakfast,
so she rose, blessed herself, and made her way back to the convent.

It was not unusual for Sister Ida to leave some food on her
plate, but this morning she left over half of her bread loaf untouched.
Sister Millicent noticed and came over to where Sister Ida was sitting
listlessly.

She asked Sister Ida about her hunger, and went on about how
she “could never be as devout as you.” In response, Sister Ida got up
from the table and, grabbing the remaining bread, left the convent
again in the direction of the garden.

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On the well-worn path, Sister Ida again encountered the gray,
scruffy dog. She approached him and offered him her uneaten bread,
which he graciously accepted and promptly ran off with. His ap-
pearance struck her as different somehow, and she could not put her
finger on it exactly. It was noticeable yet discreet. The Sister realized
that, like her, the dog was gaunter than at their last meeting. The
both of them took up less space in the world.
The freshness of the garden was a welcome reprieve for Sister
Ida’s tired mind. She strolled through and paid special attention
to the small details she usually would have ignored. This was the
only break she felt justified in taking from thinking about salva-
tion.
The flowers in the garden were spotted with tiny bugs—the
type of which Sister Ida could not identify—that formed tiny soci-
eties in their tiny worlds. The Sister noticed the way certain plants
clustered together and others stretched away from each other to-
wards the sun, while still others used each other as support to reach
towards the light. Dew reflected light off stalks of grass like a mil-
lion tiny mirrors, and Sister Ida thought that this must be what the
Kingdom of Heaven felt like.
What must a martyr feel like? she thought, and craved that un-
reachable distinction. It was an age without martyrs, so the righteous
could no more die righteously than common sinners. Sister Ida con-
templated her own battle, herself against hunger and gluttony, and
she shivered. She had a long way to go.



“I think of food constantly. I reprimand myself, and the feeling in-
tensifies. I restrict more, and the feeling still intensifies. What am I
doing wrong?”

“When you think of becoming gluttonous, do you follow that
desire?” asked Sister Ida’s confessor.

“No. But what if I did some day?”
“If you have faith in your heart, you will not give in.”

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“I do, but I think about food so much that I cannot even think
about God. What kind of Sister am I, concerned more with my
physical survival than my spirit?”
“Sister, if you do not follow these urges, then you are doing
everything right. Confess your gluttonous thoughts regularly and
Christ will forgive you. Follow your current path and you will be
like Christ.”
Sister Ida would have stormed off, but she was too tired, so
she wandered away feebly instead. She made her way to her room
and slammed it shut, bursting into tears on her bed. She could not
understand why no one would help her. Maybe my Pa was right! she
thought frantically, though she knew she could not make herself
believe it. Starvation had become her path to salvation.
With a pang of guilt, she remembered that raggedy dog. Grab-
bing her leftover rations, she ran out of the convent to see if he was
by the path to the garden. He was, and he looked worse than ever:
his eyes had sunken in slightly, his ribs were visible through his fur
and his coat looked dull and dirty. Guilt overcame Sister Ida and she
collapsed on the ground next to the dog, heaving from both her exer-
tion and her emotions, and remained there for a good while. Faceless
shame flooded her mind, spread through her body and wrapped
round her soul until she felt she was aflame. She leapt up to return
to the convent and the dog was gone, along with the rations.
Sister Ida took the long way back to the convent both be-
cause she was tired and because she did not want the other Sisters
to see her tear-sodden face. It was at this time that she detected a
faint, smoky odor. She kept walking, and the odor grew stronger.
She rounded the corner and the convent came into view. She
gasped.
Flames were leaping out from the near side of the convent,
and the air was filled with smoke and the frantic cries of Sisters and
authoritative shouts from the priest and the awful sound of wood
snapping in heat. Sister Ida was mesmerized for a moment at the
terrible majesty of it all: the flares leapt and burst and twirled the
way she and the other girls in the village had danced as children. The
fire grew and shrank and consumed and flickered with abandon.

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SHORT STORIES
She could not help but stare until another Sister came running up
to her.

“Sister, grab a pail! Help us!”
Sister Ida grabbed a pail but was unable to carry it very far. She
tried to help them fill the pails but she was too weak to operate the
pump. For the first time in her life, Sister Ida felt powerless.
What caused it? Another Sister, frustrated at her inability to be
as disciplined as Sister Ida, had tried to burn herself with a candle in
her room, dropped it onto the bed by mistake, and the whole place
had gone up in flames.
For the next several days, Sister Ida did not leave her room
except for Mass and prayers. Guilt draped over her like a blanket,
a heavy blanket that she could hardly move or breathe under, and
smothered her resolve.
In this time, Sister Ida became weak, so weak she was unable
to attend Mass or receive the Eucharist. Some good the body and
blood of Christ is going to do for my soul if I cannot accept it. She was
at the point of death, yet she still refused food, and the Abbess had
no choice but to allow her to pursue her chosen path of salvation. A
sense of unease had entered her mind.
Finally, the sun came out, and she arose from her cocoon. It
was still cloudy and a little cold, but she could stand in her own skin
again. With the return of the sun came the return of concerns and
worries. Sister Ida fled the safety of her room to find the dog.
It took her some time to find him. She searched the well-worn
path first, then the long way to the garden, and found him about
halfway along the path. Revulsion rose in her throat as she realized
he was limp and still, and the Sister fell to her knees in deference to
this lost life. Guilt tried to overcome her again, but instead a primal
terror sparked in her chest and travelled up her spine and filled
her head with thoughts of her own death. Her own funeral rose
before her eyes, and it was not far away. It was lonely and cold and
morbid, like the poor dog’s. No matter the cause she was living for,
she was just as fragile as this dog, placed in the world so tenuously.
The smallest wind could wipe her out. With this newfound sense of
mortality, Sister Ida resolved to live her fragile, fleeting, ephemeral

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Adelaide Literary Awards Anthology 2018

life for herself. She could not be a martyr for Christ, but did He
really need any? Instead, she could be her own martyr.

Anything worth dying for is also worth living for.



Taking a thing worth dying for and turning it into a life worth living
is a difficult exercise in meaningful existence. Sister Ida found herself
caught between two sides of herself: the pious ascetic, who gives up
everything she has and then still more, and the sensible sister, who
respects the limits of the human body. Not being one for modera-
tion, she tried to do both but found that her heady enthusiasm had
left her and she could not do that.

Coming in from the garden one morning, she seated herself at
the table, slightly away from the others, for breakfast. Tentatively,
she began to eat, and tried to ignore the incredulous glances from
the other sisters. Sister Ida, that paragon of self-control and virtue,
giving in to hunger!

Sister Ida looked down at her half-eaten bread and thought to
bring it to the dog, but, with a pang of guilt, remembered his lifeless
body in the sun. She no longer took that path to the garden.

Suddenly, something changed in her: her spirit had rebelled.
Her spirit wanted to be let free, and she had the urge to jump on
the table and shriek, but she reined her soul in. For the first time in
her life, she felt like she had a choice.

Only God can die on the cross.



“I do not feel like I have to starve myself anymore. I do not know
why, but I do not even feel guilty. What is happening to me?”

“This is all a matter of willpower and faith,” her confessor said.
“Everyone is afflicted with irreverent thoughts. The holy can sup-
press them.”

“Does that mean I am no longer holy? Because I simply do not even
feel all that impressed with the mass anymore. It all seems pointless.”

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“Have you done anything to let the devil in lately?”
“I have been eating more. But not in a gluttonous way.”
“Well, this is going to be a matter between you and Jesus. Pray
to him and he will guide you back to the holy path.”
It struck Sister Ida that no answers were to be found there. She
had to search for them herself. Frustrated, she took her irreverent
thoughts and left her confessor.



The Communion song rang out in the chapel, and the Sisters sang
and swayed along with the familiar tune. Sister Ida sat in her usual
pew, near the front, but she was deep in thought. Irreverent thoughts
plagued her mind but she was not especially concerned; rather, she
took them and ran with them in the empty spaces of her mind where
personalities bloom and life begins.

Sister Ida’s row stood and lined up to take the Eucharist. The
sister was still somewhere else and scrambled to keep up with the
rest. Still, a seed of discontent was growing in her heart.

The body and blood of Christ. That’s all I’m supposed to need to
live. But I am a human being! If that dog could not survive on what
God provided alone, then how can I?

Sister Ida stood next in line for the Eucharist, and a thought
suddenly struck her with such force she lost her breathe: she was free.
She was her own master and she was free.

Is this blood, or is it wine? Am I damned or am I divine?
Ida looked the priest in the eye, turned around, and left the
chapel.

Brenna Carroll is a student at the George Washington University
studying history. Her poetry has been published in Mythos Zine of
Northwest Indiana. She is interested especially in female rebellion
and the idea of sanctity.

107



Horse Country

By Barbara Bottner

I’ve only agreed to accompany my husband Dan to Sunday brunch
with a Paul somebody because I’m terrified that he’s meeting a horse
breeder un-chaperoned. When unnerved, some people buy expen-
sive chocolate. Dan buys a nine hundred pound mammal.

It’s the kind of overcast day in the San Fernando Valley that
screams for the New York Times, Mozart and yoga pants. One thing
Dan and I’ve always been good at is Sundays. It’s as if our heart rates
and pulses finally synchronize.

But, there may be another heart rate joining us soon.
I’m not sure how I feel about this.
My period is three weeks late. Or is it four?
This is the morning I’d planned to tell him what color the 99%
guaranteed blue and white pregnancy kit turned, but he got this call
from this guy who’s only briefly in town. So, while he gets dressed,
I make the bed, tossing my childish collection of stuffed animals in
among my pillows. I don’t really mind postponing the big news.
Well, continuing to postpone.
I’ve kept him in the dark. It’s where he lives, anyway. I decided
I needed to process my own issues about parenting before I say a
word out loud.
On the plus side is that I’m heading to the far reaches of my
thirties. Which is how I tend to think of being forty-one.
Forty-two, okay.
I turned forty-three last week.

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Adelaide Literary Awards Anthology 2018
I’ve never been sure I could be someone’s mother. I’m a writer
and significantly self absorbed. But lately, I’ve found myself stalking
infants in the supermarket. The babies like my goofy efforts but the
mothers look slightly disturbed. And I worry that my intense bab-
bling to someone else’s child is getting to be over the top.
So, that’s a clue.
As far as Dan is concerned, his horses are his kids. Were. At
least this past year I’ve managed to persuade him to sell off ten of
his eleven trotters. His stable had become all consuming, not to
mention expensive. I accomplished this by begging, manipulating,
threatening and weeping. Ultimately what worked was wearing
high heel red suede shoes and gallivanting around the bedroom
half-naked.
Ironically, it’s probably because of the strenuous activities fol-
lowing one of those performances, that my life might be in for a
massive change.
We’re almost at Ventura Boulevard. Dan’s flushed face re-
minds me that I live with a man who strategizes about anything
that can run on four legs and has a mane–- with the discipline of a
convenience store lottery player. But unlike them, his bank account
is loaded with fresh cash that glows neon in his mind.
Now, the wild and crazy guy I married rushes across Sepulveda
against the light, yanking my arm to keep up with him.
“That Buick almost got me!” I complain.
“This will be fun,” he says. He has perfect hearing which
doesn’t mean he hears me. At the next street Dan stops at the cross
walk like a normal human being for once and smiles at me. I don’t
want this next thought, but here it comes: he’s happy. I see the pure
sweetness at his core. He’s beautiful.
“Imagine!” he says. I don’t have to guess at what. It’s always
four legged creatures that make him this buoyant.
I hear myself saying ‘drats,’ out loud, like a cartoon wife, who
aspires to be a force of nature but is only two-dimensional, has silly
hair and no real core. I am Marge Simpson with a better profile.
Dan needs his games while I need him. He is the tree trunk and
branches to my flitting bird who’s never had a nest.

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We arrive at the chic The Wine Bistro. The ceilings have old-fash-
ioned fans, presumably from Cuba, setting off the genuine New York
factory tin ceilings. The lighting is halogen and arty. Thin bread sticks
and dark rolls with rosemary smell exquisite.
We often come here on Monday nights to listen to music. Dan
loves jazz but not as much as he loves the track. I’ve encouraged
him to play his tenor sax even though it’s loud. I tell Marlene, my
budding therapist pal, it’s like living with John Coltrane, the early
years. I’ve bought him fake books and CD’s and played him the
classic albums I’ve accumulated since college. But playing music at
the level he aspires to is difficult. And for Dan, being alive is already
difficult.
What would happen to our nights out if little XY or XX comes
along?
Okay, I admit it; I’ve read how the fetus develops. For the first
few weeks, it’s the size of a poppy seed, i.e. it’s only a cluster of cells.
In other words, a sesame seed is larger. So, I figure I have time to
find out if my maybe poppy seed should grow.
But not that much time.
Dan points me towards a tall blond fellow dressed in sleek,
casual clothing who waves, and grins broadly. Something about his
eyes make my hands sweaty..
“Open mind,” prods Dan as we head to our table.
“I’ve heard all about you,” Paul’s long, clammy fingers grip
my hand like a vise. During his prolonged smile, I notice that he’s
missing a tooth.
He catches my look, says, “Dan, I can see your wife’s wondering
about my dental status.”
“I always adore being referred to in the third person,” I smile
with faux sweetness.
He’s not biting, comes closer. “Wrestling. I held the champi-
onship for lightweights when I was in college and I still fool around.
Probably not that smart.” His pungent Patchouli aftershave wipes
out the lovely rosemary breadstick aroma.
“What college?” I ask dripping with honey.

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Adelaide Literary Awards Anthology 2018
He hesitates, comes out with, “Oberlin. I majored in economics.
Wrote a paper with my professor that was ultimately accepted into
the Economist.”
“Really? As an undergrad?” I almost squeak, incredulous. By
the time a paper hits major national magazines, grad students’ names
become invisible.
“That’s formidable! What was it about?”
“It must have been, what, 1980? Dealt with the global
economy. We were about twenty years ahead of our time.”
I lean forward, wait for him to continue the excellent grave
digging.
Dan catches the tension, tries to redirect. “Nice shirt, Paul,”
he says.
“Should be for almost two hundred bucks,” says Paul. “Some-
times you splurge, right, dude?”
Dude? Since when is a surgeon who looks like Beethoven, a
dude?
I’d like to splurge all over him. And I don’t buy the tooth story.
If you’re dealing with horses in the six figure range, you don’t go
around looking like a hoodlum –-unless you are a hoodlum.
Dan tries to get me and Paul to agree on something. “How
can you not love horses? The way they fight to win, their sheer ath-
leticism; it’s inspiring!” He turns towards me, his broad, strong face
a alive with enthusiasm and glowing. Horses are sacred to him like
cows are to people in India where, if you hit one in an auto rick or
motorcycle, you can go to jail for two years.
I wish I could lock up the part of Dan that gambles.
I also wish Dan knew there were more sacred things than cows
or horses.
On the other hand, I worry that I’m too selfish to be anyone’s
mother.
“I do love the horses. But from a distance. The way I love Johnny
Depp,” I explain. “Anyway, honey, you agreed, to find new, healthy
sources of pleasure,” I say, using my modulated, therapy-approved voice.
Under discussion has been Dan’s compulsive tendencies. Since
he doesn’t bet, and only buys, he insists he’s in the equine business.

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“Have you ever been to horse country? It’s gorgeous!” Paul asks.
I look at him with savage eyebrows.
“I mean if we were to breed, honey….” Dan adds.
Dan’s voltage tells me he’s got the mind-altering adrenaline
buzz on. And now I am getting perturbed. The Gamblers Anony-
mous literature I’ve borrowed explains how the partner of the addic-
tive personality is prone to dizziness, palpitations, hysteria, sudden,
inappropriate outbursts of anger, headaches, loss of appetite, exces-
sive overeating and withdrawal from friends and family. Eventually,
to absolute self-destruction.
“Calm down,” I say, mostly to myself.
“Willie swears by Paul,” Dan says, citing his trainer.
“It’s Willie’s crazy schemes that got us into debt, honey,” I
counter.
“He’s done good by us too,” says Dan, ever blinded to Willie’s
conscientious attempts to get us to purchase yet another equine.
“Willie, who drinks booze with the sort of allegiance one de-
votes to the Green Berets, that Willie? Willie who’s always manure
-adjacent, is miraculously going to solve our money problems?”
“We’ll make cash from mating King! Not to mention there’s
a fortune to be made if his offspring became winners, right Paul?”
“Absolutely,” says Paul looking uncomfortable.
“Welcome to our marriage,” Dan applies my overused joke.
My open mind is mostly shuttered like a beach house in Arctic
Winter. The days of boarding, training, racing, losing- our-entire-sav-
ings and going-into-debt are finally and only recently, over. “Paul,
you should know our money is in an account Dan can’t get to?”
“That’s why I’m turning on the charm,” says Dan, flicking his
bad boy dimple at me. I wonder, is this type of personality any kind
of father material?
I think of his ex-wife, Maxi. She told me they had trotters
instead of a marriage. Maxi didn’t care for the four legged creatures.
She laid down the law: no horses. Then, no kids. Then, no husband.
Dan got the stable and I got Dan.
Originally I didn’t have any real opinions in this arena until
the night he took me to the backstretch. There I discovered the

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dank smell of the hay, the Olympian animals, the Runyonesque
ambiance. I felt transported into a truly exotic land. Old black men,
faces carved with untold tales, were sitting under a single light bulb
playing gin, just like in the movies. I wanted to know more about
these living legends but was afraid to hear their stories. I imagined
them as disenfranchised black men, leaving small towns that held
no futures, riding on railroad cars, sleeping in abandoned barns with
paperback novels stuffed into their pockets that sold them on the
glamorous life of grooming horses in the beautiful rolling hills of
central California. Maybe they believed the color of their skin would
finally not count against them. And maybe they fell in love with the
muscular animals when their own bodies were starting to fade.

But as arthritic and badly dressed as they were, sucking ciga-
rette butts and snorting snuff late into the night, they played hand
after hand. The scene had the iconic feel of a Norman Rockwell
painting.

To my surprise, I felt drawn to this exotic world. At least for
a while.

Then, I was with Maxi.
I’m convinced that if Dan didn’t own pacers and trotters,
our life together would improve. I believe that without horses, we
wouldn’t have this tension; this background argument that covers
us like smog. Dan wouldn’t be fielding phone calls from Willie at
2AM, to talk about a pulled tendon. Maybe he’d bring me flowers
or give me a neck rub once in awhile. Maybe his concerns would
center on us. On me.
But what if my elemental– perhaps desperate– need for his
undivided attention is unreasonable? I’ve never hidden it. But let’s
not get into that whole bi-polar, terrifying mother story and how I
grew up with so much fear I developed unfortunate coping habits,
then had to pay a bloody fortune to learn to undo them. No. Been,
been, been there.
On paper, I’m nobody’s ideal version of a parent, that’s for sure.
But I’m working on it. I touch my stomach. In there, a cute egg with
a lovely singing voice has merged with a fine, dashing sperm with an
impossibly high IQ. So, I will get myself up for evolving. But will Dan?

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“Paul’s willing to pay us real money for King,” he says to me,
as if Paul weren’t there.
“What’s real money, guys?”
They look at each other telepathically, I guess, refusing to an-
swer.
Even this mild conversation could easily turn into something
worse. Our fights are often defined by geography. At home, it’s as
if we’re on opposite teams, while in grocery stores, we hug. Deci-
sions in the meat department, which kind of beef, bottom round or
brisket, maybe pork chops for a change, get us holding hands. Once
we arrive at the leafy vegetables, romaine or arugula–- we become
so overwhelmed, we cling to each other. By the time we reach the
imported cheese section, there’s often necking. Organic or local.
Marlene says this isn’t love, it’s anxiety.
She’s so wrong. Frankly, I worry for her future patients. I be-
lieve that love includes anxiety. Anxiety is one of the building blocks
of existence.
I grab a bread stick and suck on it as if it were a pacifier. I’m
trying to figure out why the hell I have the sweaty palms and simul-
taneous goose bumps.
I try to imagine Dan focusing on a short person with a bat in
his hands. Or her hands. I was a great pitcher in middle school.
Paul’s ball bearing necks swivels towards me.“ ”We’ll work out
those details. Anyway,” he slides to a photo on his cell: “here are a
few of the seventy odd acres of green rolling hills where King will
run free.”
The land he shows us is breathtaking. “This where you breed?”
I ask.
“Actually, our property is just across the way from the photo.
We’ve been building the barn so we haven’t had time to take pic-
tures.”
Seriously–-a photo of a ranch across the road? I glance at Dan,
raise my over worked eyebrows, but his face is ever shinier with eau
du enthusiasm. Then he’s selling and selling hard, discussing the
various mares he wants to mate with King.
“You have to get a look at this foal! I’d give you a great price.”

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“I like a balanced top line,” Dan’s free-associating. “I don’t like
a heavy fronted horse. But ultimately there’s always the question of
concentration.”
Concentration. Yes!
“From what I’ve heard your foal is a royal pain in the ass.
Doubtful she has the makings of a broodmare,” says Dan, finally
showing some spirit.
“We’re done buying horses, Dan! We’re divesting! Raising a foal
is just another big bet!”
I start mumbling about the math; the cost of hay, replacing
hooves, vets bills, things I have learned about but have zero interest
in. I’d rather be in my bathrobe, offering my astonishingly insightful
political analysis of Fareed Zacharia’s monologue on the Middle East.
I want to say, ‘you’re a doctor. Why can’t you just doc?’
Completely ignoring me, Paul mentions gestation periods. For
a horse it’s only a couple of months more than a human.
I can’t be more than five weeks in.
“Try to remember King’s glory days,” Dan pokes me.
To be fair, his star steed, King, won several purses. In his last
race at Los Al, he ran with a lot of heart, but pulled a suspensory
ligament and finished up the track. We had to retire him. Now, Dan
wants to believe he can make money by breeding him.
Breeding. There’s a loaded word.
Sometimes, when I read of the crises in Africa I think, why
replicate my complicated gene pool, generations of repressed Hun-
garians and dour Poles harboring ancient territorial resentments?
Why not adopt one of those adorable kids and give them a chance?
That’s probably another clue right there.
“Paul, the doc and I are getting out of the business. We’re not
considering buying at all.”
“Instead of a baby horse,” I say, the big announcement trem-
bling on my lips…
“What can I get you?” The tall, sleek waitress appears and cuts
me off. “Have you decided?”
“I’ll have quiche,” I say, suddenly delighted my tell-all sentence
has been interrupted. “Without the salad.”

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“No salad?” This is fantastically puzzling to her.
“Quiche, a la carte!” I repeat too adamantly, giving her the
energy I’m feeling about Paul.
“Good choice,” patronizes Paul who’s never set foot here be-
fore.
Why am I having such a violent reaction to this dude, I wonder?
But I can barely touch the food on my plate. Too busy being
vigilant.
I’m not by nature a violent person, not generally vindictive,
although I have spurts of strong annoyance and the occasional ep-
isode of road rage. But I feel threatened. Dan’s poor judgment and
deranged hopes for sudden wealth, for appearing in the winner’s
circle, for being interviewed on some cable sports TV station, can
lead us down the road to destruction, bankruptcy, humiliation.
Why can’t my husband be more tuned in? I use my psychic
powers to send him a word: ‘baby. Baby, baby, baby!’
No dice.
“I can let you have the foal for…” Paul’ missing tooth glares
at me.
“Buying is off the table,” I hiss.
I’ve been known to blow opportunities, cause embarrassment,
act outrageously. I’ve exited a room, a job, a country with my tail
between my legs––or tail-less.
The waitress is gleefully pushing a House Special desert…–-a
flaming chocolate brandy number. Writers are prevaricators. We
get paid to lie convincingly. So, in my brightest voice, I say: “Sorry,
but deserts are poison to a diabetic! I’ll wait for you boys outside.”
“Diabetes?” whispers Dan incredulously.
I’m on my feet mumbling about glucose levels.
It’s a little brisk on Ventura Boulevard, but I don’t care; it’s
warm compared to sitting next to the horse hustler.
Three minutes later, Dan bursts into the street. “I’m so sorry
to hear you’re diabetic! It came on rather suddenly!” He shakes his
head incredulously and gives me a shattering look, or a look that
might shatter someone less determined than I am. Then he turns
and marches back inside.

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Twenty minutes later, Paul and Dan emerge. We all shake
hands in the restaurant parking lot. He’s driving a rented Ford Fi-
esta. Really? He couldn’t go for the extra bucks for a Caddy? We’re
saying, oh, we’re so extremely happy to have met each other. Chums,
we are. “We look forward to seeing you up at the ranch. Love your
sweater, my wife would be thrilled to meet you, you can get a prize
foal for about ten grand,” says the snake before he slithers off to his
blue rent a wreck.
I take off ahead of Dan.
“You were awful!” he scolds, marching behind me through the
carefully tended suburban streets.
“I was unpleasant! You haven’t seen my awful.”
A dog barks. A radio plays “You’ve Got a Friend.” I sigh, try to
improve my posture, a self-help project that might come in handy
in the coming months.
“You can have the last word,” Dan promises.
“My last words are: his eyes were bullet holes!”
“Jesus!” Dan sprints ahead of me and he’s no sprinter. Then,
winded, he waits up and turns around. “It used to be the odds that in-
terested me. Favorites, long shots, Exactas. There are rules, but they’re
always being broken. There’s order, but there’s chaos, too. You never
stop learning: heart-rending races with big-hearted horses.”
“Poetic, dear. We really should walk more.”
He ignores my wisecracks. “I’m realizing, though, it’s more than
that to me. It’s a foreign country, a new language; it’s painting and
music. You know how you always say I should explore my creative
potential? Well breeding, making a winner, now that is creative.”
That word again. Breeding. Bingo!
We shuffle inside our house. His eyes are steady on me. I give
out nothing encouraging.
“Well, I suppose I can see, he is a bit slick,” he admits, sotto
voce. “I was really just meeting him for King’s fee.”
“The man is a walking Chernobyl!”
“You’re way overstating the case,” he slips his arm around me
amorously. “Hmmmm.” He slips his hand down my ass.
“I can’t do this now, Dan.”

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He gives me the full on sex voltage, heat coming out of him
as if he’s a wood burning stove. I don’t respond: I’m all business,
so he tackles the situation again. “Okay, okay, if you’re that cer-
tain, I guess we can sell King. I think we can get thirty-five grand
for him.”
It would erase our debt. I suck in air as if I’ve been underwater
too long. “Are you making a true commitment, Dan? Even with all
of that racetrack poetry inside you?”
His mantra is “whatever you say.” The man just wants to get
laid but his words still make me hopeful.
“No breeding at all?”
“You are what matters,” says Dan.
He strokes my hair. “Comon,” he says, and leads me into the
bedroom.
“Hold on, there, sailor….”
“You have something better to do?” He has the special effects
ability to transform into a human super nova when he wants to. He
pulls me into his chest.
Old longing.
He kisses my neck. I hate that I’m this easy to get.
We’re under the sheets, now. It’s hard for him to talk while
making love, like his emotions are in some sort of crawl space that
we both have to get into. But at least we do get there sometimes. All
of this love pours out now. His skin is medicine to me.
Then, what is that–- a tentative sound–-tapping? Drumming
on the front door? Then, more forcefully, insistent knocking. We
go limp; someone‘s selling roof tiling, religion, college-bound kids
hawking cookies–- eventually they’ll leave. But they don’t. We freeze
like guilty children.
“Yo! You guys!” That voice is so damn familiar. “It’s me, Paul!
I forgot to leave you the papers!” He’s about ten feet away from our
naked bodies. “Hey, your screen is broken!”
“Tell him to get the hell out of here,” I growl.
But Dan’s flipped open the blanket.
“I can fix this screen for you,” Paul offers.
I holler, “get lost!”

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“And the papers–-it would take all of four minutes to go
through them!”
“Really?” Dan asks,
I lunge towards him, grasp his giant leg. He extricates himself,
mutters “I’ll be right back,” jumps into his jeans and heads towards
the door like a frantic mosquito. I suddenly wonder why didn’t
I heed my aunt who, after meeting Dan told me to keep looking
around “and if I you’re lonely, get a cat!”
I never liked cats.
In the living room, Paul’s managed to get Dan to read the
papers. Something happens to me; a force, fierce, focused, unafraid,
opens my mouth which shouts: “I’m coming out there, Dan. And
I’m naked.”
Dan and Paul roar. But I’m not being funny: I mean to be Kali,
the Indian goddess, passionate. strong, destructive. As in, “Kali has
had enough!”
When I was young, I was bold. True, everyone was; we were
changing the world. We made love in public, got arrested in for-
eign countries. We did radical theater, yelling at the audience that
they were Capitalist pigs. We did those things. I did those things,
I remind myself. I tell myself, ‘you are not just a woman stuck in
suburbia. You’re not a cartoon. You’re not Betty Boop. Jane Jetson.
Or Marge Simpson. You may not be a goddess, but at least you can
be Lucy from Peanuts.’
I head for the living room thinking if I am to bring someone
into this world, I need to be fearless. I open my robe, drop it in a
full frontal display.
For an instant, Paul’s speechless. Then he utters an almost sa-
cred “wow!” He quickly realizes that that reaction is 180% the wrong
one so he jumps up streaming nonsense words, grabs his papers and
races out the front door.
My turn to laugh.
“What was that supposed to be?” asks Dan.
“That was me saying enough!”
“I never committed to anything!!” he exclaims.
“You ran out of the bedroom on me.”

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Dan’s eyes have gone soft and cloudy. “I don’t know if I can do life
without horses,” he mumbles head in hands now. His body folds down.
“There has to be something else!” I say, wondering if this clue
will register.
Outside there’s vehement chirping, another bird dispute that
happens all the time in the San Fernando Valley.
“We’re the destination for all the birds with issues,” he says,
than a tear starts streaming down his cheek. “I gave up the stable.
I’ve lost everything that matters.”
“Everything?”
“I mean everything that isn’t us,” he amends.
If only he’d look up and study my face for a moment. Read my
mind. But his eyes are closed.
“I’m doomed….”
“We’re all doomed, Dan, we just manage to put it on hold.”
Then, under his breath, he starts humming an Eagles song, The
Sad Café. He sings it perfectly, a tiny a cappella gem.
Some of their dreams came true,
Some just passed away
And some of them stayed behind
Inside the Sad Cafe.
These words account for so much in both of us.
Maybe a dad with an addictive streak is not ideal. Neither is a
mother who is prone to sudden weeping. But somehow I can see us to-
gether, this little pink XY or XX person and her sad café of a dad who,
watching her grow, will become less melancholy. Surely he will adore
his child. Anyway, who knows what the cures are for the human heart?
We fall back onto the bed. Dan rolls over onto my stuffed
animals, picks up my maroon elephant. “I can’t believe how many
creatures you need to keep you company when you sleep.”
“They love me,” I say. “They love all of us.”
“All of us?” he mutters, starts drifting into asleep.
“All of us.”
I don’t tell him that my bears, rabbits and I lie awake and
together, we stare at the ceiling, asking questions without answers.
Big questions.

121



On the Rocks

By Beth Mead

Yesterday I hit a stunning young woman with my car. It was the
most truly awful moment of my life—not a statement I would make
lightly, as there has certainly been some competition in my 43 years
for that particular distinction. In fact, it seems every day holds some
bit of awfulness for me, like this morning when I walked right into
the mailman. I wasn’t paying attention; it was completely my fault.
His bag fell and a handful of letters scattered along the sidewalk. I
wanted to apologize, or help him pick up the letters, but I couldn’t
bring myself to look at him, and besides, nothing seemed appro-
priate after ruining his morning like that. So I coughed and looked
away and hurried to my car.

Of course, as I drove to work this morning, all I could think of
was that young woman. She’s fine, luckily, a slight concussion I was
told, and it seems all fault has been placed on her chemically altered
state. I didn’t know about the drugs until later, though, and when
I found out I was perhaps more disturbed than relieved. My first
glimpse of her as she appeared in front of me, right in the middle of
the road, was all limbs and hair, endless hair, whipping and twisting
as she fell. When I got out of my car, saw the languid beauty of her
body bent into a sort of dancer’s pose beneath the front bumper, the
feeling of dread was so thick in my chest that I couldn’t swallow. Her
eyes were open; I had been shocked to see her eyes, alert, brilliant
really, looking up at me with no trace of emotion. Her face was thin,
too thin, with cheekbones too harsh to rest beneath those eyes, but

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her simple beauty staggered me and I smoothed my hair and tried
to flatten the unironed pocket of my shirt. The back of my neck was
stinging and hot. I couldn’t speak; I just looked at her delicate face,
waiting for the police to arrive, hoping someone had called them.

I suppose I knew it then, as I looked at her, but it wasn’t until
this afternoon that I finally made the decision. It was time for me to
go to the volcanoes. I’ve been wanting to study the Hawaiian arc of
volcanoes since I was eleven. That was the year I had to get glasses,
thick glasses, heavy enough to never quite stay on straight, and as I
wore them I sat low in my desk at the back of Miss Pittipski’s sixth
grade classroom. I eventually discovered an intense comfort in the
natural disaster books that lined the back wall, protecting my face
from unwanted attention by looking down at the glossy pictures
of the Hawaiian arc. I memorized those pictures, felt the draw of
the volcanoes in their neat line, waiting to erupt. It didn’t happen
often, the eruption, but I knew I wanted to be there someday when
it did. Later, in high school, I started to check out books from the
library and found I was also intrigued by the mythology, by stories
inspired by the volcanoes. Virgin sacrifices flung into volcanoes to
preserve the natural order. Death to maintain life, bones and flesh
and hair consumed by molten lava to nourish the earth. The lava,
even trapped in those pages, looked like liquid fire, incandescent,
living and breathing. I wanted to see it up close.

I’ve filled out four grant applications in the last two years, fully
intending to go to Hawaii and do field research on the volcanoes,
but the applications never seemed to find their way to the mailbox.
The time was never quite right. There was always a reason to stay in
Ohio, to keep my stable job teaching geology to high school soph-
omores, students who were 15 and 16 and weren’t new anymore
but still felt they had forever to go until graduation, teenagers who
simply couldn’t care less about the types of feldspar or the viscosity
of magma. I had been warned by my mother, over and over, that I
would regret teaching high school.

“Fred, honey, those kids’ll eat you alive,” Mom would say, or
some variation of that sentiment. I knew what she meant, and her
intentions were good. I suppose I’m just not particularly fond of

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dealing with people, and I do tend to avoid the meaningless con-
versation that acquaintances, and even strangers, seem to insist on.
But it’s different when I’m teaching, somehow; everything falls into
place, makes sense. Like today, during my lecture on the principle
of dynamic equilibrium. I’ve said those words, written them across
the chalkboard, for almost twenty years now, but it always feels a
little new somehow.

“Dynamic equilibrium,” I said slowly, drawing out the sylla-
bles as I scratched them across the board. I turned and grinned at
my students. “Exciting, yes?” A low murmur of laughter answered
me. “What is it, what is it? Ryan?” Ryan unfolded himself from his
desktop and looked up at me, his heavy brown eyes almost awake.

“Mr. Clark, I don’t think that was in our reading last night.”
“Oh, Ryan, nice try. But no such luck.” I waited out the
snickers before turning back to the board. “Okay. Dynamic equi-
librium.” I underlined the words. “Interconnectedness!” I began
writing the definition as I spoke. “The state of interconnectedness
among the earth’s major components. And what are those compo-
nents? Jennifer?”
“Oh. The major components. That would be, like, the compo-
nents of the Earth?”
“Thank you, Jennifer, for that lovely clarification. Yes, the
major components of the Earth. The atmosphere, the geosphere,
the hydrosphere, and the biosphere. Right, Jennifer?”
“Right, Mr. Clark,” she said, rolling her eyes, smirking.
“And these components, my friends, exist in a state of changing
balance. They impact each other! A significant change in any one of
them will result in a change in all the others. Yes?”
“Yes,” echoed my students lazily, humoring me, scribbling my
words in their notebooks. I appreciated their efforts, slight though
they were, but I was no longer sure they were enough for me. The
students weren’t interested, would never find any excitement in the
things I loved, like earth and air and lava and rock, the things that
continually build up and break down around us. And, of course,
hitting that woman yesterday had to be a sign. My car, a good car,
the kind with power everything, had been like a reminder to myself,

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why I was still here, how rewarding it could be to have a secure job
with a steady income. But now, sitting in that car, all I could see was
the accident, and that woman’s eyes, and the sleepy, blank faces of
my students. And the volcanoes were calling. So it was time to go.

“When the car hit me, it started to rain.” That’s what I remem-
bered, and that’s what I told him. I didn’t mention the part about
tasting the rain, soft, salty, letting it melt like candy on my tongue.
Or how the raindrops, splatting against the ground and the car and
my face, sounded like firecrackers, the kind I got to play with when
I was a little girl, those long, crackling strips. I didn’t say how they
told me later it wasn’t raining.

“Oh,” he said, quietly, not looking at me. “So, that’s all you
remember?”

“Mostly,” I said, then laughed. I could also remember looking
up at him after he hit me, how he just stood there and stared at
me and fidgeted and turned all red in the face. But the one thing I
definitely couldn’t remember was what I had done with my shoes,
which really bothered me because they were my soft black flat shoes
with little strings at the toe that made me feel like a ballerina, like
I was floating above the ground. I liked floating. I laughed again,
louder this time. I wasn’t trying to be mean, but really, what did this
strange little man want from me? Why was he here? He hit me with
his car, and yes, I was too high and walking down the middle of the
road with no shoes on and it was my own fault, but that didn’t give
him the right to show up here, in rehab hell, this white and shiny
place with its eyebrow-scrunching people who pick me apart daily.
I hate this place. Everyone here walks carefully, them and us, as if
the ground were splintered, and the voices are always hushed while
they relate and express and the other meaningless things they keep
asking me to do.

“Well, I just,” he paused, took off his giant glasses and breathed
on them, wiped them with his shirt. “I felt awful. I kept thinking
that I should have done something, or said something.”

“It’s okay, don’t sweat it.” I touched his hand, but he jerked
away from me like it hurt. “It wasn’t your fault. I told the cop that,
too. They couldn’t really charge you for hitting me anyway. I was

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flying high in the middle of the street. I guess unless I had died
or something.” I stopped when his face went white. “But I didn’t,
right? Just a concussion, just stuck in this lousy place.” I picked a bit
of fuzzy lint off his sweater sleeve. I couldn’t resist, he was so jumpy
and everything. It was funny, almost sweet. His back straightened
and he coughed, one of those fake polite coughs, and I watched the
lint float down to the floor.

“So, I should be going,” he said, “but I’m glad you’re okay.”
He stood up too quickly and bumped his knee on the table. I didn’t
laugh this time. He started to leave but then turned back to me and
said, “I wanted to give you something.” He handed me a little folded
cloth, soft like snow, and I unwrapped it because I figured that’s
what you do when somebody gives you a present. Inside was a rock.
An actual rock, flat and deep black and shiny. We weren’t supposed
to have personal items in this place, but I took it out of the cloth and
curled my fingers around it, holding it like a secret. I didn’t know
what to say, what you’re supposed to say when the guy who hit you
with his car gave you a rock. So I just looked up at him and smiled.

“It’s obsidian,” he said to me, all eager and beaming. “Volcanic
glass. It’s formed by lava cooling beneath the surface of the earth.”
He picked up the cloth and folded it. “It’s something I’ve been
carrying around for awhile now. It has, I guess, helped me through
things. Sort of like a promise that things will get better. Maybe it can
be that for you.” He looked at me, into my eyes, for just a second,
then tucked the cloth back into his pocket.

“Hey, thanks,” I said. He turned away then, sort of smiling and
sad, leaving me with his little volcano rock.

I tried to describe him later to Ray, but I couldn’t think up the
right words. It didn’t matter, though, because Ray just understands
me. He’s the only person in this place who can. Ray’s easy to talk
to because he’s not a user. He’s an alcoholic. Drinking just seems
more romantic to me, more forgivable. I can never talk to other
users. They go on and on about the white hot rush and the clarity
and they don’t listen, just give you all their bullshit insights on life,
trying to prove how deep they are. I don’t get it, don’t need to hear
it. It’s not like that for me. It’s always been like air, a way to breathe.

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I didn’t start with pot as a kid and graduate to coke and get sucked
into crack, the way they all describe it here, and excuse it. I just met
a guy at a club and he knew exactly how to kiss, consuming, slow
and soft and melting, and back at his place he smoked a rock and
offered it to me like it was a gift, like his lips. After a couple months
he didn’t want me anymore, but I still wanted his gift. The high was
hot dancing bodies and soft-soft lips melting onto mine. It kept the
blood in my veins from stopping. It, this thing, this drug, was in me,
it was part of me now, and I accepted that and held onto it tightly.

I said all of that to Ray, too, and he listened to me, really lis-
tened, made me feel like my words were important. That’s why last
night I gave him the rock, the volcano rock I mean, from the guy
who hit me. Ray was leaving in the morning, and he was all worried
about going home to his son, saying he was a rotten dad and how
could his son ever respect him or forgive him. I don’t know anything
about kids, but Ray’s eyes blinked fast and his chin shook a little
when he talked about his son, so I felt like I should do something.
The rock was all I had to give him. I didn’t need it anyway. I’m not
going to change, not going to get helped through anything. This is
who I am, frozen, waiting for those lips to come to me again.

The day my dad came home from rehab was the same day my
guidance counselor called me into his stuffy brown office at school.
I didn’t even know I had a guidance counselor. But at least it got
me out of gym class, flag football. I hate gym. So I went in there,
nervous I guess. I thought maybe the school found out about Dad,
and this counselor was going to preach to me about forgiveness or
whatever. I didn’t need to forgive Dad. I never blamed him or any-
thing. He works all night, sometimes two shifts in a row. It sucks.
Maybe I’d be drinking too, if I were him. Who knows. But I didn’t
want some stranger telling me that. It was mine to know, not his
to give me. Not in that ugly brown room. It didn’t matter anyway
because it turned out there was just a problem with my schedule for
next semester. When I left the office there were still twenty minutes
left in gym class, and I was supposed to go back, but I decided to
walk really slow through the hallway and count floor tiles instead.
That was sort of like exercise.

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When I got home that afternoon, Dad was already there, sit-
ting in his plaid reclining chair like he’d never left it, waiting for me.
“Hey, Dad,” I said. I didn’t really look at him, but I could tell
he was looking at me. I couldn’t remember him ever looking at me
much before, so I sat on the couch across from him.
“Ben, hi. Son. I’m back, I’m home.”
I still didn’t look at him because it was kind of weird how he
called me son. “Yeah, that’s great, Dad,” I said.
“I just want you to know that I’m not drinking, not ever again.
I’m home now. We’re going to be okay. We’re going to be really
good.”
“Okay,” I said, finally looking at him. I didn’t want to tell him,
but he sounded more drunk now that he did before.
“I’ll never wind up in a place like that again,” he said. “But
some good came out of it. That’s what matters. And Ben, I met this
lady while I was there.”
Oh, great. I didn’t want to hear about some affair or some-
thing. That’s all I need, my parents get divorced, joint custody,
weekend visits. “Oh,” I said.
“She gave me something the night before she—well, she took
a whole lot of pills. They weren’t even sure how she got them.” Dad
looked at me kind of sideways, uncomfortable, like he wasn’t sure if
he should keep talking.
“Oh yeah?” I tried to keep looking at him.
“She had the saddest face I’ve ever seen. And hair, so much
hair. She would talk to me for hours, never making much sense,
but I just listened because she seemed to need it. Although it must
not have done much good.” He made a sound, almost like a hiccup.
Then he stretched back in his chair and pulled something out of his
pocket. “She gave me this.” He held up a black rock, kind of turning
it so the light glinted off it.
“A rock?” I asked. It didn’t look like a real rock, like in the dirt.
It was totally smooth.
“Yes, well, she said it’s supposed to help you, make your life
better, something like that.” He handed the rock to me. “I don’t
know how true that is, but I want you to have it. It’ll be like a re-

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minder, my promise to you. I want to make things better for you,
Ben.” Dad stood up then and I could tell he’d lost weight. That
made me sad and I wasn’t sure why.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said. I closed my hand around the rock and
hugged Dad with my free arm, then went upstairs. I slept really well
that night. I didn’t dream at all.

Yesterday, instead of going to gym class, I went to Mr. Clark’s
room, the geology lab. It was his free period, the secretary said.
She didn’t know if he’d be in there or not, but I figured it was
worth missing gym to find out. And he was there, sitting at his desk,
holding a piece of paper in one hand and an envelope in the other.
He was staring off at nothing, or maybe he was really seeing some-
thing, I don’t know, but he looked weird. I started to back out the
door but he turned to me then, squinted at me through his crooked
glasses, and I figured I should say something.

“Mr. Clark? I’m Ben, and I need more credits for next se-
mester, and the office said your class was full, but if maybe I talked
to you and got a signature on this form it might be okay if I took
it.” I set the form on his desk, cleared my throat, and waited for him
to move or at least breathe loud or something. He looked like he
couldn’t believe I was really there in front of him.

“You want to study geology?” he asked me. “Why is that?”
I pulled Dad’s rock out of my pocket and showed it to him.
“My dad gave me this, it’s about the only thing he ever gave me, re-
ally, and I looked it up and it’s called obsidian. Volcanoes make it.” I
looked at Mr. Clark, and his eyes were wide, looking at the rock, but
he didn’t say anything. So I kept going. “I thought that seemed pretty
crazy, how something dangerous could make something as cool as
this rock. It’s, like, quiet. And beautiful, or something.” I stopped,
feeling stupid, but then Mr. Clark pushed his glasses up on his nose
and looked straight at me, like I was saying something important.
“Yes, it is beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sort of amazing that this cool thing can form
while it’s just sitting there, letting the lava pass right over it. So I was
just reading about all that, and I thought maybe geology wouldn’t
be such a bad class to take. You know, if you have room for me.”

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He paused for a second, and I thought he might say no. I
went all cold and my stomach felt strange. The rock was slick in my
hand, and I watched how it reflected the buzzing fluorescent lights.
Obsidian, I thought. It was a good word. Finally, Mr. Clark stood
up. “Of course,” he said. He signed the form, Frederick T. Clark,
Geology, and handed it back to me. Then he picked up the paper
and envelope from his desk and threw them in the trash can next
to his desk. “Ben, it will be a pleasure to have you in my class.” He
looked down at the rock in my hand, then back up at me. “I’ll see
you next semester.”

131



Dead Batteries

By David Macpherson

The snow stopped falling in the middle of the night. In the early
morning the day after Christmas, white-laced trees reflected the weak
winter sun on a background of steel blue—brief magical experiences
to those who ventured out on short walks from heated garages into
warm stores. Sam Clayborn’s opinion of the scene was more mixed
as he looked out his bathroom window. Bitter cold awaited him.
Winter weather—deep snow and subzero temperatures—brought
more business to tow truck drivers like him. Chains and wrenches
sucked the heat from his hands even through insulated work gloves.
And today was likely to be even busier than usual as the two com-
peting tow trucks, owned by small gas stations, had decided to take
the day off, while the larger company he worked for, the company
with the AAA contract, offered 24/7/365 service. His would be one
of the only tows on the road for a large area of northern Indiana.
Holiday travelers leaving from or returning to Chicago via the in-
terstates would be testing their cars and driving skills.

Sam had not celebrated Christmas for many years, choosing to
work instead. He hoped for constant calls for help to distract him
from the anniversary. But, yesterday, Christmas Day had been quiet.

The hot water pipe shuddered after he opened the sink faucet.
The water warmed very slowly. His five-day stubble was suitably rough
looking for today’s work. He found the alpha men whose car had failed
or whose driving skills had been proven less than they had imagined,
were more docile and controllable when facing a taciturn tow driver

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with a rough stubble of beard. And for reasons only the fashion gods
would understand, stubble was in style now, something that might
make him attractive to women. A former girlfriend had told him once
his best feature was his eyes, round and deep blue, suggesting kindness
that she had told him never followed. He hadn’t argued with her, not
because he believed he had been kind to her, more that he was uncer-
tain what was meant by the word. Besides, on the job, kindness was
not required. He had no interest in being a kind character in some-
one’s travel story. He covered his eyes with wraparound sunglasses.

His first call came at 8:30 a.m.—AAA call—car won’t start.
The Camry’s battery was dead. He recognized the street name—a
neighborhood of mostly apartments. A woman looking to be in her
thirties, about Sam’s age, stood by her dead car as he pulled up. She
appeared defeated.

He tested the battery and it wouldn’t hold a charge. “Your
battery’s bad.”

She gripped her chest with crossed arms and rocked in the cold.
“Just jump it. I don’t have time now to get a new one.”

“It may not start again.”
She did not respond—it didn’t seem to matter to her.
Her face was mostly covered with a gray scarf. Her coat seemed
too thin and too short for the weather. She was a small person and he
guessed even in a long puffy down coat, she would appear thin. Her
eyes, pretty even unadorned with makeup, were wet—from the cold,
he guessed—though he wondered if he saw something more—an
unnerving, familiar sadness.
His first hookup of the jumper cables reversed polarity. He
caught his error before attempting the start but wondered, had he
not, would the battery truly explode? Chiding himself for allowing
her to distract him into making such a basic mistake, he switched
the cables. The car started immediately.
“Give me a minute to get you the paperwork,” he said.
She climbed in her driver’s seat.
After the paperwork was done, he took off his sunglasses and
returned to her driver’s side window. She had set the heater fan on
high. “Damn thing won’t blow hot air.”

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He handed her the papers. “It’ll take a few minutes before
you’ll get heat—you might as well turn the fan off for now.”
She looked at him for a few seconds, her eyes holding his like
she might know him. Or was she asking for help? She turned back
to the windshield and whatever lay in front of it and drove away
without a word.
Some customers wouldn’t even thank him—the hassle of a
broken car overwhelming efforts for simple courtesy. Over time, he
had learned not to let this bother him. Though he hoped she might
notice him as something more than a tow truck driver, he sensed she
had more troubles than just a dead battery—something about those
eyes. She would need another jump if she let the engine get too cold
after her next stop. He might see her again tomorrow morning if the
prediction of persistent frigid weather held. He hoped so. He had her
name, Kristin Carey, and her phone number on his form. If he called
her to ask her out, she might complain—he could be fired. Still, he
rehearsed the phone conversation in his head, hearing her accept his
offer for dinner with a soft laugh. He hadn’t heard her laugh nor
even seen a smile. As he reentered the interstate, like so many hopes
he had had, he pushed the thoughts of her aside as stupid fantasies.
The day wore on—a flat tire, the old couple too frail to attempt
a change to a spare, two more dead batteries, and a new Jeep Liberty
that he was unable to start despite thirty minutes of tinkering—prob-
ably a computer failure. He wondered if his mother’s brain had failed
in the same way—no amount of tinkering fixed her misery. Though
she had died many years ago, her wretchedness punched into his
thoughts at random times. Sam didn’t understand sons or daughters
who lament that they can’t remember the face of a long lost parent.
He had been trying to forget for more than a quarter century. At 3:15
p.m., he bought a burger and fries, and ate in the truck. When he
finished, he light of the day began to fade—night was coming soon.
He dreaded the nights. Nights promised the fatal accidents.
He had righted too many rollovers, winched too many grotesquely
distorted vehicles, their makes almost unrecognizable from the
trauma, onto his flatbed. Though he often arrived at the accident
scene before the ambulance or coroner had left, he tried not to leave

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the cab until the injured or dead were gone, unless the cops forced
him. With the mangled remains of the car on his bed, he drove
quickly, yellow flashers extinguished as soon as he left the interstate,
back to his garage. He deposited the carcasses in the yard, behind
the solid wall fence. He saw no reason the public should see such
trauma. While the sight might deter some from reckless drinking
and driving, he worried it would give others an idea.

As the evening wore on, lake effect snow slowed the driving
speed on the interstate. He pulled two cars out of the median—no
one was injured. On his way back from filling an empty gas tank on
a Mercedes, he saw her Camry on the side of the road, recognizing
the dent in the right rear fender. It was parked by an empty corn-
field. The condensation from her exhaust told him the car was run-
ning. He thought about pulling over to make sure she was all right.
But he guessed he would frighten her—a woman alone at night by
the side of the road watching a man approach her car, even a man
from a tow truck she had seen earlier that day, could be terrifying.
She might have stopped to text or order food—no reason to jump
to conclusions. He drove on. Still, it nagged at him. He thought
of turning back but knew she had seen him pass once and would
wonder why he came back. He pulled into a McDonald’s at the
next traffic light, paged through the papers on his clipboard until he
found her number. Before he could change his mind, he entered the
numbers into his phone and pressed call.

She answered on the fifth ring.
“Hey, this is the tow truck guy who jumped you this morning. I
think I saw you just now on the side of the road on 681. You okay?”
She cleared her throat. “Yes.” She sounded tired.
He wondered if he had made a huge mistake—maybe she was
an addict and had just used.
“The car’s fine,” she said, her voice cracking slightly.
He recalled the sadness in her eyes from that morning and for
the first time recognized her eyes as his mother’s.
He sensed his next words would determine the course. “Okay—
you’ll still need a new battery.” Christ, lecturing her about her stupid
battery. He always sucked at this.

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“Yes,” she said, like holding back a sob.
“You don’t sound all right.”
“I’ll be okay.”
Though he had no real information from her, he had gotten
this far—she hadn’t hung up on him. He considered inviting her for
a cup of coffee but it seemed too soon. He thought about asking her
if she wanted to talk about it—whatever “it” was. But that sounded
too crazy—her opening up to a tow truck driver on the phone while
she sat in her car alongside the road near midnight.
“You okay to drive?” He liked that. It showed he cared about
her—it wasn’t a lie though he didn’t know her at all. He wondered
whether he was on the phone with her because of her, or something
else? If instead of her this morning, had he repaired a flat of a dif-
ferent woman, would he have called this other woman? Just stop
over analyzing this.
“Yeah, I’m calming down. I’ll be okay in a little while.”
She didn’t sound okay—not drunk or high, but nonetheless
impaired.
“How about some coffee?” he blurted, like he was the parent
talking to the distraught daughter.
“I don’t drink coffee.”
Well, how the hell would I’ve known that? Can someone make
this just a little easier? “Well tea then, or a coke, or something,” he
said a little desperately.
The line was silent for moment. He guessed she was thinking
back to what he looked like that morning. Did he look like a man
she could trust? No, probably not. Did he sound desperate? Yes. Not
going to work out.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”
“Okay. Take care.” He sounded kind. He surprised himself.
Normally, a rejection like this would anger him. He did want her to
“take care” but didn’t know why.
At midnight, he was called out again to remove an abandoned
car from the interstate. His route would pass where he had found her
parked before. The light from the strip malls faded as he approached
the spot. He knew she wouldn’t still be parked there, engine run-

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ning, but hoped for this, nonetheless. He saw two red lights in the
distance—her car, the engine cold and silent, she frozen dead inside?
He sighed in relief when the red lights transformed into snowplow
reflectors.

As he drove on, he considered stopping by her apartment in the
morning. Her car wouldn’t start—she would need another jump—
he could be fortuitously nearby. Stupid fantasy.

The night wore on—another flat tire, a minor wreck with no
injuries on 681, and a van that had slid and mired in a snowdrift.
The van was only two blocks from her apartment. As he winched
the van out, he considered driving by her place. He had a good ex-
cuse—only a small deviation from the more direct path back to his
garage. He thought he might stop thinking about her if he knew she
made it safely home. If someone had asked, he couldn’t say why it
was important for him to know.

He turned on her street and knew immediately her car was
gone. The space she had parked in this morning was empty, the oil
smudge marking the car’s past presence was dusted with light snow.
Only a few other cars were parked in the block. There was no other
logical place she would park if she were home. Sam had never mar-
ried nor had children of his own but thought now he understood
what parents felt when their children were late getting home. At least
she couldn’t have been killed in a crash—as the only tow working,
he would have known.

But still, why wasn’t she home? You fool, lot’s of reasons. She
made up with her boyfriend and is spending the night at his place.
She went to a bar to meet a guy with more potential than a tow truck
driver. She’s staying at her parents place—her dad is going to get her
car fixed for her in the morning.

All of that made sense if it weren’t for how her voice sounded
on the phone. Something more was wrong than just a spat with her
boyfriend or a broken car, something that made her pull over on the
night after Christmas and park, engine running, by a dark field of
corn stubble. It could be serious—he might be the only person who
could help. What if he read of her murder by an enraged abusive
husband in tomorrow’s paper? He would have missed his chance to

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save her. He was the last to see her. Hell, his past would make him
a suspect.

His parole had ended years ago but he still had a felony drug
charge on his record—a pot plant found in his apartment that hap-
pened to be on the same block as a grade school. He used daily
back then but never sold. He had served three months when he was
twenty-four. It was enough for him never to touch anything more
than alcohol since.

He drove back to the garage and sat in the office drinking
a cold cup of coffee. His fingers tapped on the desk. He knew he
couldn’t sleep if he tried. It was too late to call but he could text. If
she was asleep, the text wouldn’t wake her but if she was up, and in
trouble, who knows?

Hey, I know this is weird. It’s the tow truck driver (Sam) again.
you okay?

His phone showed she was typing. He sat up straighter.
She responded. yeah, weird.
Not much, he thought, but a start. At least she’s alive.
Where are you? Stupid, he thought. Did the question imply he
knew she wasn’t at her apartment?
on the interstate.
Christ, texting and driving. Though he did it himself. Pull over.
already on the side of the road.
where?
No response for a minute. Maybe she didn’t get the last mes-
sage.
Where? Careful, don’t get too pushy.
Somewhere in Indiana.
where in Indiana?
somewhere.
Maybe that’s smart, he thought. She doesn’t trust me yet.
Okay. Where you headed?
Nothing for a minute.
to hell.
“To hell,” was the last thing his mother had said to him the
Christmas she overdosed, ending her miserable life.

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He hesitated on how to reply.
I may see you there. when are you planning to arrive? Fool, he
thought. Humor now?
Five seconds later. tonight.
His stomach clenched. What does that mean? He needed to
find her.
As he walked to the truck, he thought what message might
delay her, make her stay put. He started the truck, the diesel chug-
ging to life quickly.
He texted as he drove thinking he needed to be direct. Okay,
you’re scaring me. What do you mean?
No response for five minutes. He approached the interstate.
East or West? She could be anywhere. He guessed east though could
not say why—another random choice.
He tried again. You still there?
yeah
For a moment, some relief. How about I call you?
No
His finger hesitated over the call button. And his phone battery
power was down to five percent. In the rush to get to the truck, he
had forgotten the charger.
Okay, I won’t call. What’s wrong boyfriend troubles?
She was typing again. He passed the overpass where the veteran
had died.
No, not a boyfriend.
what then?
Nothing for minute. He had turned his flashers on and was
driving too fast for the conditions. He passed a semi using the
snow covered passing lane. The truck fishtailed slightly. The trucker
honked at him as he passed.
Nothing on his phone. He tried again. You pulled over?
Yes
Good. Stay put.
Why? are you trying to find me
Better to lie. No, I’m at the garage. He didn’t enjoy misleading
her—he guessed she had been lied to often, though he knew he had

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no basis for that guess. This is crazy, he thought. Why am I chasing
this woman? Why get involved with a suicidal person? The idea he
might have a satisfying relationship with her seemed ludicrous. He
had been unable to have a relationship with stable women. He could
easily turn off his flashers, turn around and go back to the garage.
Wait, no—assuming her cell phone survived whatever she planned
to do, his texts could be found. How could he explain why he aban-
doned her? Phone down to three percent.

you’re lying.
Christ, how did she know? If she saw approaching flashers, she
might bolt. He turned them off. He considered calling the police.
They could locate her by her phone signals. But really, what evidence
did he have that she was about to commit suicide? Would they be-
lieve him? Just want to help, he texted. Not a lie.
Nothing for five minutes. His speedometer read seventy-five.
What if this was all some kind of miscommunication? He was
risking his life for nothing. He needed to be direct. Think of the grief
for those you leave behind.
His mother would have said, “they deserve it.” He prayed she
wouldn’t text the same.
Yeah.
Strangely, the way she confirmed his suspicion was a relief.
As he typed his next message, he thought he sounded like an
amateur psychologist. So, somebody will cry at your funeral. Who? He
hit send.
Another minute passed.
Would you?
He pulled over and stared at his phone. The snow had stopped.
He didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral and had not attended another.
In fact, he had not cried since leaving prison. There was no kind
way to answer her question. And not answering soon might seal
her fate.
It came to him in an instant. Would you cry at mine? She would
be the only one.
He sat and stared at his phone, hoping for the signal that she
was typing. There was none.

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He waited. Down to one percent. He clicked his screen to
black to save power. The highway was empty, the only sound the
soft chugging of his truck’s engine. He turned it off and opened his
window. The night was windless and moonless.
No cars passed.
He waited and looked at the black phone screen. The trucks
engine ticked as it cooled. A single car’s headlights blinked over the
hill from behind. He watched the lights grow larger. The car’s road
sounds built to a crescendo and then faded. His screen remained
black. He wondered if the battery had finally exhausted itself or was
still searching for a signal.
The screen lit. Its a deal.
Headlights blinked over the far hill in front of him. Another
set reflected off his side mirror.
His fingers were trembling as he typed. Meet me? where?
travel plaza at Portage.
He was five miles away.
David Macpherson is a retired internal medicine physician living
on a small farm in western Pennsylvania. He began writing fiction
in 2016. His fiction has appeared in Scarlet Leaf Review, Adelaide
Literary Journal, Front Porch Review, Rind Literary Magazine,
Everyday Fiction and Typehouse Literary Magazine. He won first
place in the 2018 Pennwriter’s Annual Writing Contest and this is
the second year his work has appeared as a finalist in the Adelaide
Literary Magazine Short story contest.

142

The Day I Am Dead You Know
I Start Suf-Fer-Ing

By Judyth Emanuel

Why do we ever? Fall in ahhh sweet. You realise this can happen. We
meet and the how? Not that interesting. He rents my spare room. Ha.
Hello Pal twenty-six beats of drum years. And me Crazy thirty-five
sugars hi def dumb blonde, wearing a Target rose-bud dress, push
up bra, fishnets, duck slippers in summer and pink rubber gloves size
large, washing the dishes, foam up to my elbows. Big suds explode.
Pal, same as the dog food brand, whistling tunes elvishonkytonk do
me baby ooh ooh running his fingers through tousled wet. Blinks
beautiful blues. His mouth coveting my plump pubis. Dog food says,

I love you, but.
And he stops. He reckons love unmans a man.
Frizz stinking drunk for the first. Song. A mad sad moment. I
hanker do me. I bite him in the neck crave suck his blood. You are
not safe. Wolf lady chomps disappearing the loneliness. Wanting is
hard.
Tell me what you want woman.
Give me paddle pops, gentle spankings. Give me back to my-
self.
I want to bang bang his lips, push my tongue into his sub-
terranean self. Hand caresses whacky, oh stuff it. Lip smacker taste
mwah yikes someday I’ll be wine. Rock and rolling makes dents in
the mattress. And the breath play. Death by orgasm. We come close.

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Scream us with joy scatters his dick spew. Two hundred moons fly
out of me. I smash my heart on him. Oh Pal. Why do we do this?

Well I like my house tucked away in the peaceful pointless.
Small rooms of creams, dimmer switches, raked ceilings, sec-
ond-hand furniture, no curtains, no frills and plenty of useless vases.
The entrance door on the side of the house, not the front. Badass
luck.

Pre-fab Pal flashes silk ties, sporty cufflinks, Argyle socks,
starched shirty. His busy successful corporate finance Life. la la de
da Burst of dollars. And fuck-me-up-the-ass girls jumping at him.

Pal runs, works, cycles, makes a phone call, buys some time.
Bye bye babe knocks my nerves. The perpetual exit sells me down
his river pours onto the streets winding to the beach surfs into the
city to the centre of darkness. There there. Can I?

He never says, come with me.
Together years, the wooze, the shine of rough days like a
burning axe. Don’t picture the end. Crazy plummets roller coaster
anxiety, raw in and out, greased lightning. His threats to leaper off
our carnival ride,
You ancient witch.
He keeps me and kills me At The Same Time.
Anger fakes the humping. Crazy prefers a corn cob. Pal huffs
puffs begs,
Blow me.
But I don’t know how.
Higgledy piggledy speed bumps ka-thunk ka-thunk how I
drive and Pal cranky,
Are you trying to kill me?
Well. Yes. Ha.
And I throw his phone out the window.
I saw the text message. Who do you think you are? An eel? A
rubber hose?
Look, he says. This turquoise suit matches my eyes, don’t you
think?
My nose wrinkles at the hideous turquoise suit fit for a queen.
Hey girlfriend not supposed to criticize. Sensible girlfriend plots

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destruction of the turquoise suit. Set it on fire. Feed to the lions.
What lions. No lions here. I toss out the turquoise suit.

What have you done with my.
It didn’t suit you.
The quarrels beside a river, reeds quiver. Sullen and damp hair
sticks to my goose-bumps sips champagne gone bubbles. A devil
moon devours melon and brie arguing sunsets,
The house faces the wrong way. Don’t expect me to fix it.
But we could move the front door.
Where to?
Hasty organizes fancy dinners. Sorrel soup, duck a l’orange,
truffles, kippers, cheeseburgers, burnt figs, garlic fries, charred cau-
liflower and coke. Get that into him. Greed feeding dread. Death
by food. Like that Danish king bloke dead from scoffing fourteen
bowls of hot cream. How do I know that. He he he.
Romp whelp recites his bore list bow wow,
Buy me Moet and cologne. Spoon-feed ice-cream into my
mouth. Poach my eggs. Mop the sweat from my brow. Crush my
Prozac in honey.
Okay.
I iron his pancakes. I fry his shirts for breakfast. I crush his
eggs. I ride his anaconda. I massage his cute tight butt. I spoon-feed
Prozac into his mouth. He farts, hocks spit,
You never do anything nice for me.
I am beyond confusion.
What about all those dinner parties?
Listen, you say. Rub coconut oil onto your skinny bits. Go on.
Create the easy slippery essence. Be slutty it hurts less.
Right. I promise to hide the basket of vipers, shave my pubes,
lick his frothy cock, drink a triple hemlock.
What, he asks. What the fuck is hemlock?
Poison it is. Yep.
Shiver naked at the top of the stairs. Light bulb exposes chalky
face tears blotching beige foundation. Non-water-proof gunk
blusher streaming down my cheeks. I blot a smile. Here he comes!

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Adelaide Literary Awards Anthology 2018
Two steps at a time. He pauses. My body blocks his trajectory Life.
His faces of blank swanky,

Did you wash my underwear?
I reach for him.
Put your arms around me.
Clutch Crazy hangs on. Get him on sale. Pretty boy looks
good. Pretty sun-kissed lashes. Pretty penis hates Crazy. But screws
my ruptured heart beating hope. What’s so funny? Bitterness com-
pacts in my stomach. I shit this residue of passion gush down my
legs. Was there passion. Does nipple-sucking count?
The king-size bed boat floating. I lie. Pancake breasts rib cage
rises, falls, heaves. We stare at opposite walls. We spoon. The weight
of his dick softens in my hands.
Sorry.
What for.
In the middle of the bed, I build a pillow blockade. An un-
steady keep away from me.
Swim this sea of self-sabotage. Simper. We get fatter. Creamy.
Pal grows tender breasts like a thirteen-year-old girl. My shrivel dries
armpit and pubic hairs. I struggle to fill his empty ocean with a
bucket. Meteorologists claim drought triggers rejection. What the
fuck do they know?
I know but swear I don’t know.
Enough. Tittle tattle. To fix us! Patch the saga what remains.
A holiday in China grand jumble of bamboo scaffolding. Grandpar-
ents sweep the streets. Vampire coffee, ping pong, chocolate coffin
cakes, every day laundry day. The rice wine blows my head off. The
Great Wall wails me down. God forbid, I fall on my knees inside a
forbidden temple.
I love you.
And Pal’s face turns a strange magenta. The colour of expired.
The second I become unloved.
Fly home of white knuckled turbulence. I hide in the toilet.
Soap dispenser oozes a semen substance. This my reflection in the
mirror. A naked shrew replaces blondie coy angel servant. Hysteric
crushes little paper cups. Push the call button urgent assistance.

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Woman buried in the shitty stench of I cannot not live without a
man. Press the flush. Flushing sounds like a monster sucking my
ruin through a plastic straw.

And the suffering begins. Just when it is not supposed too.
God windows sparkle, glass-topped coffee table, glass of water,
clear Perspex box of tissues reflects pain in the snivels. Transparency
of Pal here. See through his see-through. Arms cross. Leg jiggles.
Contempt face registering this is bullshit.
The Shrink shines her flawless suntan, poises her note-pad,
pencil scribbles. Pal lasts ten minutes.
Gotta a conference call at eleven.
He vanishes. My shaking hands tear tissues into flakes of
wonder.
Twinkle-tits counsellor writes. Must be nice in the sun. The
ergonomic chair spinning keeps time with sobs, it is over. My life in
ruins. Her voice smooth as satin ribbons,
Tell me your primary occupation.
Uh I sell soft furnishings, cushions, linen, mind-numbing
towels. And I cry. All day. So, it’s convenient, being close to the
towels.
You seem nervous.
I am afraid of Absolute Reality. I am afraid of what I am afraid of
really happening. I feel powerless. Worthless. My collection of china
swans makes Pal furious. We don’t fuck. I can’t live without him.
That self-satisfied cunt strokes her shiny.
It’s best to stay calm and communicate with each other. You
see Pal is what we call a wabbercocky.
I half rise from my designated seat.
A what?
It’s unfortunate.
Is it?
She hands me the whole box of Kleenex. I freeze still half risen.
Yes. Now you must suffer the consequences. That’s ninety dol-
lars for today. You can claim it.
My time is up. Hell. Crazy demands an instant lobotomy.
Take me to the madhouse. So far out of my mind, I might never

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Adelaide Literary Awards Anthology 2018
return. My swollen face haemorrhages sorrow. I want to yank that
glossy mane clear from her scalp and shoot her in the heart and yell
stay out of my hellhole. Instead I flee. Too scared to ask. What in
the name of God is a wabbercocky?

Which way to the front door? A Feng Shui expert appears. Cha
ching. Tough tot physique loaded with crystals. Clicks her clogs
from room to room. Her sphinx eyes drawn to anguish. Feng Shui
woman speaks in a Special Voice.

Your home faces the wrong direction.
Um. How did that happen?
When the flow of chi becomes disarray, misfortunes rule the
day.
Okay. But what should I do?
Obviously, you can’t flip the house around.
Obviously.
Buy a ceramic three-legged frog. Throw out dying flowers.
Hide brooms and mops. Eliminate intrusive tree branches. Do not
bathe in water which has absorbed the energies of the night. Oh, and
never sit facing the toilet door. Ever.
Right, I say.
The pressure. I rush to the hardware store. Ceramic three-
legged frogs not available. I buy a small chainsaw to chop those
intrusive branches. Fire up the chainsaw and almost decapitate my-
self. Test the water. A pregnancy test? How does the bathwater ab-
sorb energies of the night? Sex and perspiration? Deepest grinding
mmmm, numb go. Man oh man. I make everything hotsy-totsy.
Create energy using jelly, ice-cubes and piss. A frog pees on the
welcome mat. I throw brooms and mops into a skip. Yes. Done.
Just dandy.
Pal catches me sitting backwards awkward on the toilet. Flash
my buttocks.
For Chrissakes. What. Are. You. Doing.
Feng Shui.
You are crazy.
Yes I am.
Have you been drinking?

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