Matthew Levine
Thinking Back On the Game
Watercolor
Response

Old Blue
By Robert Haydon Jones
Inspiration piece

Terry Moran agreed to take the plate as the Umpire In Chief of the final game of  the twilight league playoffs in the ragged park in the rusting, forlorn city ten miles up 95 – even though he knew he was taking a dumb chance.

The truth is his lust to do the game blew away his common sense. The season was winding down.  The regular schedule was over. Now the only games left were the make‐ups for rainouts ‐‐‐ and the playoffs.

Now he was at the mercy of Rudy Kirk, the Scheduler, for any more games. His chances were slim. Terry was the oldest active ump in the county ump union.  For the last few years, he had been assigned strictly second tier games. When some of the veteran umps asked him sympathetically if he minded, he said, “Hey, I’m good with it – I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” Of course, he didn’t mean it.

Back in March, when Terry called Rudy Kirk for a schedule, Kirk asked the same question he had been asking every spring for a few years now. “Aren’t you tired?” Terry kept his cool and said, “No, I’m not tired. I’m feeling tip top. Better than ever.“  He felt like telling Rudy to go fuck himself. But he pushed down the heat

So, Terry had gotten his forty games but it had been bad. From April onward, there had been a lot of bitching about his strike zone – and a number of heated arguments about calls on the lines and on the bases.

Although he had a notorious temper as a player and then as a coach and manager, Moran had not ejected anyone in twenty‐five years as an umpire. But this season he had thrown out four coaches and two players. He made a joke of it, saying, “Once I lost the white dress, it got easy.” But it was a bad sign. A good ump is invisible. Moran was proud of his ability especially on balls and strikes.  But now it looked like he was slipping

Terry knew a big part of problem was his age. On a close call, half the people are sure the umpire is dead wrong. If you ask why, they say because the umpire is a bad umpire. If the ump is over sixty, they say it’s because he’s an old umpire.

So even though he was already relegated to the bottom tier, Terry was worried this might be his last season. With all the trouble he was having, it looked like he might be done.

So as the season wound down, he began trying to freeze bits and pieces of the games in his memory so he could keep them:

The pre‐game meetings, first with his umpire partner and then with the opposing coaches; the green‐green, grass fields stamped “baseball” by the brown skin cutouts;  the fresh chalk lines and the new, utterly white, baseballs, called “Pearls”; the eager players, especially the catchers – some of whom he got to know pretty well over the years; the back and forth of play; the sweat and the exertion and the constant pressure when he worked the plate; the thrilling, down‐deep pleasure of being back  on the field when he was the field umpire.

God, he loved it! How maudlin it was to be freezing “last” games. Imagine doing that with all his life – hell he was old enough for it to make sense! The last cheeseburger, the last espresso, the last sleep, the last wakeup, the last piss!

So, when Rudy Kirk called just two hours before game time and asked him to take the plate for an ump down with food poisoning, Terry Moran said, “Okay, thanks for thinking of me”, even though he knew he was a last resort – even though he knew he was heading for a game that could be big trouble.

Terry had thrown out Ricky Miranda, the coach of the home team, twice this season. The League had suspended Miranda for two games as a result. He was a young, fiery, Latino who had led his team of poor Latino kids a lot further than anyone expected.

Ricky Miranda was a good coach, Terry thought, but he didn’t show respect for Blue. He didn’t really know the game that well. You could always argue for your guys if you showed respect. But if you didn’t respect Blue, you didn’t respect the game.

Just two days back, Terry thought he had probably worked his final game for the summer and maybe for his career. Surprisingly, Rudy Kirk had assigned him a big American Legion District elimination game. Terry had the plate. Plenty of potential for pressure, but the home team pitcher dominated and from the second inning on,  he was working with a four‐run lead. The game was over in 90 minutes.

It was a routine game on a beautiful field on a soft summer evening. After the last out, there was a lot of “Good game, Blue…” – and the fact was he had been pretty good back there. Terry kept an unused “Pearl” as a memento – in case it did turn out to be his last game.

Now his lust for one more game had him headed for a jackpot that could sully or even blot out his good game memory. He sure was old enough to know better.

*******************************************************************************

From the first, baseball was always a blessed refuge for Terry Moran. When he was eight, he moved from the city to the country. He moved from stickball in the street to baseball in the hay field in back of his house that the farmer cut twice a summer.

He played hard on that field ‐‐ usually with much older boys. He played all day until it got too dark to see. It was rag‐tag, adultless and surprisingly smooth ‐‐ like, well, like stickball. The difference was instead of broomstick‐whacking a spaldeen ‐‐ you were batting a baseball. The difference was that instead of traffic and sewers and stoops and cops, the field rolled on and on – not forever – it was bounded by houses with windows that in time Terry could break. It was the game that was unbounded.  It was so fun.

Terry’s life off the field was not fun. His parents were real unhappy. His dad lost his job and was real sick with a breakdown. His mom was alternately weepy and angry. She was cuffing and slapping and hitting Terry and his little brothers a lot. A real lot.

Terry wasn’t home much. He went to school and then he ran his paper route.  Then he played ball till it got very dark. The minute he ran on to the field it was good. The games were fun. The field was green and clean.

The April after Terry turned 12, a man in a suit and tie came to the field and asked him if he would like to play on his team. He said his team played on a field with fences and foul lines and umpires and uniforms. He said he would give Terry a uniform and a ride to the games. It was called Little League, he said.

Terry was a star right away.  The field was so small – it was like a miniature field. Hell, in his first at bat in Little League, he hit what he thought was a popup to second and everybody started cheering – the ball sailed over the fence. A home run!

It was easy. Terry had been playing with 15 and 16‐year olds. The Little League players were only 11 and 12. Most of them were real little and weak. When Terry pitched, he usually blew it right by them.

He would pitch till he was 27 ‐‐ when the kicked‐in‐the‐balls pain from the multiple bone chips in his left elbow drove him off the field.

His last game as a player was the deciding game of the playoffs in the Puerto Rican league in Central Park in New York City. He got shelled in the first inning. Four runs were in when the manager took him out. While they waited for the reliever, Terry told the manager he was hurting big time – and asked if was it okay he go home. The manager said, go ahead, like it was goodbye forever.

So Terry walked off and away from the game. No one looked at him. He was the only gringo on the team – and there was a $10,000 side bet on the game.

He walked off the mound and off the field and then up through the Park and out and then five blocks down Central Park West to his apartment. His 6 and 7 year‐old sons were excited to see him in his uniform. He went on past them straight to the liquor cabinet and chugged a half pint of Jameson right from the bottle.

After he took it off, he noticed for the first time that the uniform was a terrific uni.  It was heavy, white, flannel. His number, 37, was drop‐shadow embossed in red.

Underneath it was vivid embroidery of an Indian Chief in a war bonnet. Terry’s last game as a player was for the Ponce Chiefs. Someone came by for the uniform right before Thanksgiving.

*******************************************************************************

Now Terry was getting his gear on in the dingy men’s room at the ragged park. Jimmy O’Hara, his Field Umpire partner tonight, helped Terry pull the navy blue umpire shirt over his chest‐protector, maybe for the last time.

There was an unusually large crowd. Mostly Latin – from the sound of it. They had bongos, trumpets, cowbells, marimbas, the whole nine yards. It sounded like big trouble ahead. Trouble with a capital T.

Jimmy O’ Hara was grinning at him. “You gotta love it”, he said. “It sounds like  we’re going to be umping in the barrio tonight. Are you sure you’re ready for this?  Hey, I wonder if Ricky Miranda brought his pistol.”

Terry felt the fluttering of butterflies, big time. Then a soft warm rush as the adrenaline surged. His heart was beating fast. “I’m so lucky that ump went down with food poisoning,” he thought. “I’m so friggin lucky.”

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“You could look it up.”
Matthew Levine
Gray’s Creek
Watercolor
Inspiration Piece

Military­ Age Male
By Robert Haydon Jones
Response

An English Professor and critic I know asked me out for lunch the other day to discuss my two latest published stories, ”The Visitor” and “Petunia – Naked”,  which went up on Spark 8 a while back.

The professor has compared me to Cheever, Shaw and O’Hara in his posted comments. “His weary, wisdomed, battlefield voice in the midst of a suburban world charts new space.”  Well, of course, I revel in such praise even if I don’t believe it  ‐‐ and you can’t beat the steak sandwich at The Harvard Club.

Over coffee, he asked me what story I was working on and I told him I was planning to write about a man who exaggerates his military service.  “Interesting” he said. “I remember a Major League baseball manager who was found out – and was fired as a result. And, a few months ago, Blumenthal, the Attorney General from Connecticut, who is running for the Senate, was caught lying about serving in Vietnam in the Marines. I look forward to your story – if anyone can figure out what drives such men to pretend they were in combat ‐‐ you can.”

The professor meant this as a compliment of course. To me, the former Marine, with the weary, wisdomed, battlefield voice. The professor is an interesting, discerning, good guy. I am proud he has praised my stories. I worry what will happen when he reads this.

This thread begins in late 1943 when I was about five. That’s when I saw the photo in Life magazine that would change my life forever. When I was about 35, I tried to write a poem about it. The first line went:

“First photo of war dead sprawled in random rat-a-tat-tat.”

The poem sort of trailed away after that ‐‐ but if you are interested in seeing the photo ‐‐ as Casey Stengel used to say, “You could look it up.”

Anyway, three dead GI’S are sprawled on Buna Beach in New Guinea right at the water’s edge. The tide has been in and out. The men are half‐buried in wet sand. They are lying in a small, serried, rank. (They may have been maintaining what is known in infantry parlance as “the proper interval.”)

There are jagged rents in their clothing where bullets have struck them. One of the dead men is on his back, his right arm flung over his head, the palm slightly cupped, very natural looking, very exposed. The right leg of the dead man closest to the camera is bent at a grotesque angle. Many years later I would conclude that he was dead before he hit the ground and his leg snapped as he went down.

Well, the picture shocked me as if I had stuck my entire hand in a wall socket.  I had never seen dead people before. Also, just a week back, we had received word that my second cousin, Ray, had been killed on Guadalcanal. They sent a telegram and a Gold Star. Ray’s body was lost forever.

Even so, it was the three anonymous GI’s who fascinated me. I gazed at the picture again and again. They were dead – they would never live again. It seemed quite monstrous to me and very shocking. They had no future. They had lost their lives. They were killed trying to keep our country and children like me safe. I felt a surge of love and grief for them. I wanted to be with them right away, right on that beach. I wanted to kill the dirty Japs. I wished I were old enough to become a Marine like my cousin, Ray. I wished I were old enough to fight.

Most people alive today don’t know that at that point (September, 1943) the War was going badly for us. We were losing in Europe – it looked like nothing could stop the Nazis. In the Pacific, the Japanese had taken the Philippines, Java, Singapore and Indo China. Allied troops had surrendered by the tens of thousands and were dying in droves in ghastly prison camps.

At home here on the east coast, we had to go through Air Raid drills – and use blackout curtains and even blackout paint on car headlights. The Germans had bombed Warsaw and Russia and were blitzing London. Thousands and thousands of civilians were being killed in their own homes. I was very frightened. No, that’s not true. Actually, I was terrified.

My friends and I played war in a tidal marsh near my home. It was like the Pacific.  It was a beautiful, forsaken, place. There were five graves there from a failed 17th century settlement that had been ravaged by cholera. A sixth grave with just a jagged rock for a headstone was said to contain the body of an English soldier killed during a running battle in the vicinity in 1777.

We hollowed out fighting positions in the soft hummocks. Some times according to the improvised choreography of a particular engagement with the dirty Japs or the stinking Krauts, I would be declared a casualty and I would fall down dead. I was always careful to arrange myself in my last moments after I hit the ground so that my right leg was bent at the signature grotesque angle.

We fought hard almost every day. There were usually twelve of us.  A squad. All of the boys who fought along side me back then are dead men now. The lonely grave of the lonely, dead, nameless, English, solider from 1777 was an essential part of our tableaus. You might say he presided over our ceremonies.

Also, one my little brothers found a hiltless sword in the marsh. The local historian told him it was an English officer’s sword from the 18th century. The sword further confirmed our marsh as an official battleground. We took it very seriously. I guess you can tell I still do.

Right after Thanksgiving, my mother’s brother, my Uncle Sean, enlisted in the Army Air Force. Uncle Sean was only 17 – but his mother, my beautiful, Irish grandmother, signed the papers ‐‐ in fact she had prodded him to go. Uncle Sean was a tall, slim, very handsome lad – like my grandmother, he had the “black Irish” look. Fair skin, jet black hair and piercing blue eyes.

I was surprised he got in the Army Air Force. He had almost died of rheumatic fever when he was 14 and I thought it was supposed to weaken your heart. Uncle Sean planned to study music and art history in college. He was an accomplished piano player and had a beautiful tenor voice. He was very kind to me.

When he came back from Training in his uniform, he had wings but he wasn’t a pilot. He washed out of flight school because of his heart – he had become a bomber gunner – in fact he was rated the best gunner in his whole class. After this leave, he was going overseas to fly in bombers from bases in England.

I was very frightened for him. We took walks. He held my hand as we did. He had a really neat flyer’s leather jacket. Once, we walked all the way up Brown’s Hill to a friend’s house. Uncle Sean picked up some gravel and tossed it at a second story window. His friend flung up the sash and started cursing. Well, Uncle Sean yelled at him to mind his language because of Yours Truly.

The morning that he left to go back to the Army Air Force, Uncle Sean sat at the piano in his uniform and played and sang a favorite song of mine, “Tit Willow.”  He had a lovely voice and the sun was streaming through.  I asked him not to go. He told me he wanted to go and that he would write me letters.

The happy ending is that Uncle Sean came back – in fact, he never went overseas. He had such a bad heart – and he was such a good gunner that they kept him in  New Mexico as a Gunnery Instructor.

During the War, I visited next door with Mr. Beauchamp, who was in the Merchant Marine. He would bring me little trinkets. He was torpedoed twice. Once, he spent 18 days in an open boat in the Bering Sea.

When the War ended people were so happy. Almost everyone got a little tipsy. Afterward, a lot of men from the neighborhood reappeared.

My fourth grade teacher was blown off the bridge of his destroyer into the sea off Okinawa by a Kamikaze attack.

I talked to a man who was in a bomber that blew up over Germany and he fell 22,000 feet and landed safe in a haystack.

The football coach at the high school had been blown out of a tank in Normandy.

I went ice fishing (and rum drinking) with a man who was drafted, trained, flown to Belgium and trucked to the front as a replacement during the Battle of the Bulge. After just 20 minutes in his foxhole, he was wounded by mortar shrapnel and evacuated clear back to the States.

To say, I admired these men is putting it mildly. They were my heroes. I only wish that they could have reassured younger people like me that they were confident we also would have measured up if we were of age. There was an ugly doubt in my mind about that.

Well, it wasn’t really all that long before Korea started up. Two vets from my street had stayed in the Marine Reserves and they were called up. They died in Korea. Later, we learned they were fighting in the dead of winter in summer issue.

I was really big for my age. When I was 15, Korea was still going on and I was on a train back from prep school with a buzz cut for football and a sultry girl, a little older than me, asked me if I was in the Service. I told her that I was a Marine just back from Korea. She was real impressed. She lived in my hometown and she offered to give me a ride home when her father picked her up.

I don’t know why I lied – it just popped out of me. The girl was a real beauty…I guess I just took a desperate chance – and it worked. But then when her father did pick us up, it turned out he had been a Major in the Marines in WW2. He asked me some questions in a friendly way ‐‐‐ and I could tell he knew I was a faking.

It was real embarrassing – but he didn’t say anything. In fact, I went out with the girl, Brenda, a few times during the holidays. I was just starting to make some progress with her when an older guy, a junior at Yale, beat me out.

Then I turned 17 – and I enlisted in the Marines. My mother signed the papers on the condition that I could train in the summers and go to college and then serve my time out as an officer after gradation.

So, I went to and through Parris Island and a lot of other training.  Korea was over. Vietnam hadn’t started. So we did War Games, which in many ways reminded me of the games we played in the marsh back home.

Once, I remember I was the point man for my platoon and I came to an open area in the woods that I had to cross.  As I went across, I just knew that “the enemy” had eyes on me – and sure, enough when I was about half way across, they opened up on me (with blanks) and I was declared a KIA. I had to lie there for almost an hour.  I am embarrassed to tell you that I did bend my right leg to the grotesque angle.

So, I did all this training and put up with the usual chicken shit. It was hard for me.  I am a total spastic at technical things. (Like field stripping weapons, making up packs, even making up my bed the right way.) What saved me was that I am a very good athlete and I am a natural crack shot. But, the Marines was real hard for me.

I got married when I was 19 and I had 2 kids by the time I was 22 – so when suddenly the Marines offered an early Honorable Discharge to Regulars and to Reserves like me as part of an economy program, I jumped at it.

So I was out. I had to turn in my dress uniforms – but I kept all of my fatigues (including some, prized, “salty” WW2 issue) and my boots. Plus I had the nomenclature and the experience. Rather suddenly, I was a “Former Marine.”

Well, it wasn’t long before Vietnam got real serious. (There’s a famous photo of a Marine setting fire to a Vietnamese civilian’s thatched roof house with a Zippo.  That Marine had been a buddy of mine in basic.) So, naturally, I felt the old doubt about myself. I felt I should be there with them – even though I had every right not to be there with them.

As Vietnam spooled on and on for years and years, my old doubt morphed into pervasive shame. It was very unpleasant. Then I was flying on a business trip and the man next to me asked if I had been in the Service. I said, yes, I had been in the Marines.

He asked if I had been in Vietnam and I said, “Yes.”  He asked me to tell him about it and I told him about it. He thanked me for my service. I felt a lot better. I realize now that my story wasn’t so much for my seatmate as it was for me.

Well, I told variations of that story for years. And I felt a lot better every time. What the hell, I am a storyteller by trade.

I called the professor today and told him I had finished this story. We are going to have lunch a week from today. Hopefully, this will be up on Spark 9 by then.  The professor tells me he’s looking forward to seeing it.  He says,  “Liar stories can make great reading.”

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Annie Gedicks
Response

Pieces
By Elizabeth (Betsy) Wexler
Inspiration piece

The pieces, they fall away

Sometimes so slowly and quietly I don’t even notice until many are gone

I see the big gaping holes where they once were

And then I wonder: how I could have missed the falling

Sometimes, though

They are seemingly ripped from me

Torn out in chunks, in what feels like cruelty

But what is, in reality, a gift

How can something so healing

Feel like a robbery?

How can something so necessary

Be so rife with pain that I wonder if I will come out the other side?

And soon, new pieces appear

Fresh, brighter colors…softer texture

Brand new, or so it feels

And each time, I promise myself I’ll remember the next time

The next time the chunks feel torn away from me

But I don’t.

I forget. I get angry and scared and try to keep those old rough, faded pieces

I fear, in that moment, that it’s all I have.

I forget, in that moment, that once….those old pieces were bright and soft and new

I am trying to learn to remember, and trust

That whatever pieces I need, at any given time, are within me.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Lisa Pimental
Response

i weep in silence
By Dani Harris
Inspiration piece

•    alone in the night
•    i weep in silence
•    brushing the warm tears
•    from my face.
::   ::   ::
•    my heart
•    ~the one that loves him~
•    is black and blue
•    ….bruised.
•    so fragile
•    it may shatter
•    at the slightest touch.
::   ::   ::
•    my heart
•    ~the one in my body~
•    that beats to keep me alive
•    physically aches
•    ….isn’t that strange?
::   ::   ::
•    there’s a thick fog
•    swirling all around me
•    muting the voices of those speaking to me
•    separating me from the world
•    leaving me confused
•    ….unable to understand.
::   ::   ::
•    everything looks dim ~
•    there is a film
•    that clouds my eyes
•    so that i can’t see clearly
•    ….or even which way to go.
::   ::   ::
•    my sorrow is real
•    ~ whether justified or not ~
•    it overwhelms me,
•    it floods my soul,
•    it breaks my spirit.
•    i drown in
•    the hopelessness
•    of self-pity
•    and self-doubt.
::   ::   ::
•    I’ve become someone
•    i don’t recognize….
•    something i do not
•    want to be….
•    needy.
::   ::   ::
•    at least, that’s how he makes me feel
•    as if i’m asking for too much
•    as if i am selfish and greedy
•    as if he’s already given me so much
•    more than i deserve, in his eyes.
::   ::   ::
•    so…  if i need to be desired
•    if i need him to want to spend time with me
•    if i need him to want to tell me he loves me
•    if i need him to want me…
•    then that means i need too much.
::   ::   ::
•    i thought he loved me ~
•    i try to tell myself he still does
•    i thought he wanted me ~
•    but it faded too soon
•    i thought it was real ~
•    was it all just born of my desperation?
::   ::   ::
•    my heart has now broken
•    into a million pieces ~
•    it was too fragile
•    i was too fragile
•    i am not who i was
•    i am no one
•    i am nothing.
::   ::   ::
•    alone all the time now
•    i weep in silence
•    brushing the warm tears
•    from my face.
::   ::   ::
•    alone all the time now.

Norma Tennis
Metamorphosis
Response

Helen Whittaker
Inspiration piece

Stepping out of the shower
I catch a flash of turquoise
in the steamed-up mirror.

I wipe a clear patch.
The towel falls to the floor
like a cobra’s discarded skin.

Behind my back, unfolding stiffly,
a pair of blue-green wings –
more pterosaur than seraphim.

Damp fingers touch new skin
warm and soft
like the nape of a baby’s neck.

I should be flapping naked round the garden,
making the blackbirds
twitter in alarm.

I should be clambering up the drainpipe
and launching myself
off the chimneypot.

I should be soaring
over the sleepy red rooftops
of suburbia.

Instead,
I’m sitting on the toilet
Wondering how the hell
I’m going to get my bra on.

.

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Annie Gedicks
On the Walls Inside Her Head
Inspiration piece

Sitting
By Elizabeth (Betsy) Wexler
Response

She had an itch on her nose. Was she allowed to scratch it? she wondered to herself. Then she realized: I’m thinking. I think I’m just supposed to label it “thinking” and return my attention back to the breath. But my NOSE ITCHES! What did the great meditation masters do when their noses itched?

She shifted on the round buckwheat cushion below her, uncrossing and then re-crossing her legs. There. That was a good way to get a fresh start. Wait, did she need a fresh start?  Couldn’t she just label whatever she was thinking right now “thinking”, and go back to the breath?

She didn’t see how people don’t lose their shit doing this.

The quiet was unsettling, though she had hoped it would be peaceful. That’s why she came to this damn weekend retreat.  Her life was too crazy, to tense, to rife with drama. She wanted to get away, to find peace.  She wanted to have a break from her brain, from the endless worry, obsession, and chatter. Instead she was finding the inside of her head to be the loudest place on the planet.  Keeping her head perfectly still, she snuck a look around at the other people, sitting on their own cushions.  She wondered for  a split second if she looked like some kind of sinister cartoon character, moving her eyes around like that. Meanwhile, they all looked like they were doing it right.  Thinking…back to the breath. Inhale, exhale.  But wait-what if they were doing what she was doing? I mean, she must look like she’s doing it right, from the outside at least. Might they be screwing it up too, just not visibly? Wait, she wasn’t supposed to think she could screw it up-right? Wait, she wasn’t supposed to say “supposed to”—right??

Thinking…back to the breath. Inhale, exhale.  Maybe someone else’s nose was itching too.

Moving only her eyes, keeping her meditation posture, straight back, legs crossed, butt on the cushion, hands resting on her thighs…she snuck a peek at the timekeeper.  On his cushion he sat, with access to a clock.  That was so he could strike the gong when the meditation period was over, or rather when they switched to walking meditation. She was waiting for that with baited breath. Of course, after a minute or two of that, she couldn’t wait to sit down again. It wasn’t a preference for either of the practices. She was just excited when they got to change what they were doing. Sitting to walking, walking to sitting. It was the highlight of her day.  In that moment, looking at him, she felt a flash of ire. He could look at the clock. He had a job to do. HE didn’t just have to sit there, with the insides of his head bellowing at him.

Thinking…back to the breath. Inhale, exhale.

She tried to look at her thoughts without getting attached to them. Impossible.  As soon as she looked at what a thought contained, her mind was off and running. The director had given a metaphor in the morning meditation instruction: imagine you are standing on land, with a slow train going by. Each of the train’s cars is made of glass. Within each of those cars is a thought. It enters your line of vision, you see it, it leaves.  That was a slow train he was talking about. Her mind was a runaway train, whizzing down the tracks with no intention of stopping.

Thinking…back to the breath. Inhale, exhale.

My GOD, she thought, does my nose ITCH.

.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Nick Winkworth
The Great Affair
Inspiration piece

The Cost: A History
By Kristen Luft
Response

On a road narrowed by tall buildings closely set together, Van Liebling navigated his way through the dense feeling of entrapment growing in his chest. When the buildings gave way to paved lots inset with weedy fault-lines, the tension in his shoulders tightened rather than lessened at the entrance into open space. He parked at an angle to the docks near a gasoline station which served both land and water vehicles. His father would likely arrive at any moment with the fishing tackle and bait, a can of worms indistinguishable from the trusty sidekick can of beer sure to be held snug in his right hand. Van stowed the aerosol can, which was sitting beside him, in the trunk. Any memories of his time at home were to be kept at a minimum, and he should be gone before the day’s end without exchanging more than a few words with his father. He leaned against the galvanized aluminum railing at intervals between his pacing.

The steady tattoo of his Timberlands, the raucous merchants who lined the streets, the unremitting flow of chattering graduates through the square—all the noises of a city coalescing dropped off in a flash. A streak of light cut the sky with a force so great that sound was blotted out in an instant. Near the gasoline pump at the quays, the aerosol can of red spray paint exploded within his car, the shattering of red-spattered glass from the rear window preternatural in its soundlessness. Just outside the arc of the can’s explosion, Van Liebling stopped mid-step and lifted his eyes to gaze with wonder at the light, his awe equivalent to that he would have felt had the sun itself dropped to earth. Frozen, he watched the light disappear behind the silhouette of the mainland’s skyline—just before the skyline was obliterated and Van Liebling was rushed back into a world of sound with a cry as the lash of an unseen force tore across the island.

Sometime later, Van awoke to the darkness of a moonless, brown sky. He climbed out of the rubble, which were the remains of the gas station, and tried to rid himself of the ubiquitous dust. When batting at himself did not work, he went down to the beach and washed himself in the bay, despite the glowing, iridescent bubbles rising in the water. Their alien origins frightened him. As he bathed the coat of dust off himself after splashing his face, he surveyed the leveled city. The unfamiliarity of the place he had called home his whole life brought him to his knees, and right there on the beach sleep found him hours later.

When he awoke, the sky was still the same dark brown, as if time were waiting for something. Van looked at his digital watch, but it was dead. He raised himself up, and remembered his plans to meet with his father at the waterfront. His unwillingness to be in the presence of his drunkard of a father was only less in degree to his unwillingness to admit to anyone, especially to the man himself, how deep his indifference toward his father ran. At times, Van considered with uneasiness that he might actually loathe him, but even in his thoughts he only glanced off the truth of the matter. Van knew only that he now needed to be fortified by the annual arrival of the man into his life, a human presence in a world that had become estranged and hostile to him.

He dashed to his feet in spite of the pain and sense of loss that had remained lodged in the marrow of his being since the destruction. He clambered back onto the torn pavement and forged a path through the remants of the city in search of human contact, leaving behind his car in a ruin of obsolete memories.

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Michelle Wallace, “Friendship”

Response Piece

Kim Dollar, “For Michelle”

Inspiration Piece

Living in darkness, though surrounded with joy

Regret and despair choked breath from her voice

Marching through gardens, God’s gifts merely blurs

Reciting a poem with no rhythm or verse

Shadows born of complacency clung

To her thoughts, obstructing her view of the Sun

Comfort, fierce siren she is, sat enthroned

Though greed, her wingman, was also at home

Velvety clothing of spiritual oppression

Weighted her down, inviting self obsession

No longer just bore chains sung of in hymns

Now means of slavery of life and of limbs

Not looking to the Sun, in vain, she kept trying

To break free of the dark while her hope it was dying

The Sun would not, however, be ignored

And up to her knees crashed the hard floor

She heard herself wetly cry out ‘Oh God, please help me!

I’m helpless and scared. Please, Lord come and get me!’

Gentle invasion, Love’s light took to wing

A breeze when a cottonwood tree marries spring

In timing as perfect as aging and birth

A battle was won, reclaiming her worth

Transformation and renewing of mind,

Flowered and basked in light newly shined

Self control and strength conquered addiction

Grace and peace cooled seething affliction

Liberated legs were encouraged to dance

Newly freed heart to discover romance

And though absence of light for so long begets fear

Love’s remedy did not beseech her to steer

A lamb without flock can be easily lost

Yet vulnerability did not come without cost

Disciples of love missed their aim

Indifference awoken phantom pain

True fellowship was a distant shore

She an awkward sailor without an oar

Growing doubts, inclination to cower

Instead she leaned on a Spirit of power

So rescue arrived from looming night

A bright eyed emerald reflecting love’s light

Joyful reciprocation of friendship and time

Artful inspiration for love of the Divine

Freely given love, sincere encouragement

The simple act of mere acknowledgement

Gifts bestowed through the radiant jewel

Cured her misdirection of feeling a fool

Small victory behind, eyes can face the front

Take another step, continue with the hunt

Light is for the taking, the key is to obey

And use the hope given to find another ray

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Rachel Morton
Outcropping
Inspiration piece

Home
By Tori Lane
Response

In the beige and white matter of the brain,
I get it,
but it refuses to settle,
sink down the line of my spine,
travel south inside jugular veins,
lodge in the heart,
infect blood that pushes out,
permeate the rest of me.
I don’t get it in my socked feet
or in the morning stretch of legs,
in the hollow hunger of stomach
or shower wrinkled fingers,
in the tension of shoulders
or the rise and fall of breathing chest –
only behind the eyes,
tucked away inside the matter
where words are formed,
above the neckline of disconnect
between my head and heart.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Rusty Lynn
Life at the Edges
Response

D. Quentin Paquette
Inspiration piece

The lights flicker, and there’s a shudder and there’s movement again, you seem to weigh a bit more heavily on the floor. The orange LED’s above the door begin announcing a sequence of symbols you don’t recognize. Each subsequent one seems to slide onto the display from the right, sweeping the one before it off the left edge. You push yourself up with your elbow on the marble-patterned linoleum floor to better see the buttons. The touchscreen buttons are unmarked; on the right edge, about a third of the way up, one square button seems to have been pushed, lit orange.

The chime rings, and the doors slide apart from each other. In front of you is an undisturbed field of red poppies, growing around a shade tree at the edge of a thicket. A faint breeze stirs the petals and whispers in the leaves. The air is warm, and the shade seems cool and comfortable. It seems to be a much better place to sit than on the linoleum, and you reach up to the rail on the wall to pull yourself up. Before you reach your feet, the doors are closing, one more breath of breeze just shoulders in.

Disappointment. Then an experiment. You reach for the touchscreen. Before your print gets close enough, another orange button lights higher up, and the floor begins to lift you again. Your reach follows through and lands, but the screen does not respond to your touch. You try touching about where the first button was lit, also with no effect. The car stops again, and the doors slide apart again.

You look out across a field of tall grass. Across the field, there is a creek flowing, and beyond that the raised bed of a train track. The grass has been walked across to the door of the elevator. You try to remember which side of the crossing you had been on. The walked-on grass betrays nothing about whether the footprints lead to you or away. You decide to let this scene pass, and the doors slide shut again.

A yellow button lights itself, and the last orange character above the door gets pushed off by the beginning of a sequence of yellow ones. The floor shifts under your feet unexpectedly, and your inertia causes you to stumble to the back wall. The yellow characters are stylistically different from the orange ones, but still undecipherable. You lean back into the wall and wait. The car stops again, and you try to guess where you’ll find yourself as a double tone announces the stop.

This time, the doors open to an indoor scene, and your eyes need a moment to adjust. What comes into focus is the green felt of a pool table. A game has just finished, and there’s an empty glass on the rail. A cue is leaning up against the table, propped against the fitting at the side pocket. It’s not clear which, if either, of the players will be returning to the table. The 5 and 6 still sit on the felt. The waitress comes by to pick up the glass and the tip left under it. The doors start to close, and you wave your hand between them to get them to open again. If anything, your triggering the sensor only seems to close the doors faster, and you have to quick pull your hand back to keep in from getting caught.

Anxiety builds from the aggression of the doors, and at the lighting of the next unbidden yellow button. You decide to get off at the next stop, no matter what or where. When the doors open, there is only water and waves. A storm is being pushed out ahead of the high winds. A boat is getting tossed, turning into the wind, sails furled waiting for more manageable currents. As the clouds push back, a full moon is revealed. The moonlight sweeps in across the sea, finally reaching the boat. As the wheel gets lit, the pilot looks over at you. After a moment, he starts toward the rail, just as the doors close again.

A new button glows red, and new inscrutable characters move above the doors in red LEDs. After a brief ride, the doors open and you step out onto the beach. It is a gray day, and it is starting to drizzle. The sandcastle at your feet is at risk of being washed off. Your lean in to look closely at the walls below the red flag. Just noticeable on the highest tower are two imprints from where the figurines have been

removed recently. You reach into your pocket just to check. The rain starts to fall heavily, and you step back into the elevator.

It still waits as you watch out at the rain falling. You put your hand above the buttons, breathe in, breathe out, and put your finger down. The button beneath your finger lights red, and the doors close, and you feel yourself being lowered down. When the movement stops, you close your eyes, uncertain of what you may have called. You hear the doors open, and then the empty sound of anticipation, and then rapid footsteps chased by their echoes. You look to see a long steel hallway, and a figure staining to run down it, repeatedly lit by the overhead fluorescents, picking up speed, trying to get there before the doors close, swayed with each right stride by something hanging at that shoulder.

The doors start to close, he’s not going to make it, and you find you can’t move, other than the slight jump of panic with each step ringing out. Reaching up to his shoulder, he grabs the strap, and with the next step, throws himself to the floor to throw the bag forward. It lands short of the threshold, but slides forward to topple between the closing doors, spilling out pliers, a light switch, and some small insulated tacks. The doors try to close over the bag, spring slightly back, and repeatedly try to close again.

Hey.

“Nice entrance. What is all this stuff?”

My electrical rig, I’ve been doing some stuff around the house, didn’t have time to clean it up. Having a little trouble with the elevator?

“That’d be one way to describe it. Hard to feel like there’s any control. And don’t give me any of that crap about control being an illusion, I don’t even get the illusion.”

That does sound like me, doesn’t it? Sheesh, I should knock that off. Mind if I take a look here?

“You’re pretty sure you won’t just make it worse?”

Do you have any idea what worse would be like?

“Didn’t you just say you should knock that off?”

Hand me the screwdriver with all the different bits, let me see if I’ve got the right star thingy to get the access panel off. This one might work.

“Doesn’t the OSHA poster say, ‘Always use the correct tool for the job’?”

Yes, the same poster that says, ‘Do not engage in horseplay’, so I think it might not apply here. Let’s see what we have here,… hmmm,… okay…

“What is it?”

Well, it looks like there are two different sets of connections, with at least one other set of wires that has been superimposed on them. I wouldn’t know where to start here. I mean, we could go one connection at a time, keeping track of how that change changes the ones on that same level, eventually it should be possible to at least get everything lined up.

“Kind of like a big Rubik’s cube.”

Yeah, but with a lot more sides.

“I thought you were one of those people who was good at those.”

Well, I am, but not in the usual way. What I do is I turn the mechanism so that all the pieces come apart and then put it back together in order. Even that would take a long time. How often do you have this dream anyway?

“Tell you what, why don’t you step back out at the next stop.”

This is odd here. What’s happened to this?

“To what?”

These wires have been cut already.

“Um, yeah, I think I did that. I’m pretty sure I did that.”

Here’s something I can definitely do. Grab me a few pieces of wire out of the bag,… now hand me the stripper, needlenose,… a couple of those twist on connectors,… ouch, dammit.

“Aren’t you supposed to be wearing gloves”

Just a little pinprick, but yes, and there you are.

“You fixed the controls?”

The controls? No.

But the ‘Call Button’ works again.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.