Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

Here’s a new piece of fiction, as always based upon the image up at the Elephant Words site.  Enjoy.

 

 

In Dreams
By Chris Beckett
 

 

This is my world. 

 

Each morning it’s the same, dark poles and the strings connecting them.  I’ve been lucky, most days this summer there’s been that deep blue – is it cerulean – for a background.  It helps a bit to see that when I open my eyes.  Much better than the slate gray that washes everything on a dreary day. 

 

Occasionally birds greet me, sitting on the wires like notes on a musical scale.  It should bring a smile to my face but does little else than distract me for a few seconds.  That’s probably the best I can hope for.  It’s not easy to get excited about the day with a ventilator hissing in my ear.

 

•••

 

Mom comes in.  I try to turn and look at her, but the effort is too much.  I continue to stare out the window at my canvas, a faint vapor trail stretching across the sky, an invisible crayon scratching the pristine image. 

 

She sits on the edge of my bed (my head lolls just a bit to the right signaling this) and leans down to whisper to me.  “What would you like for breakfast, Mark?”  I don’t know why she feels a need to whisper; it’s not like I gained some expansive acuity to my hearing when it happened.

 

She waits patiently, then asks again.  This time I turn.  She looks tired, but it doesn’t affect me like I know it should.  It’s disconcerting, analyzing my reactions, knowing how I should be feeling while observing the opposite emotion. 

 

I whisper to her between clicks of the ventilator, and she gets up without another word.  She’ll return in a few minutes with my oatmeal. 

 

I’m not sure why I play this game anymore.  It all tastes the same to me. 

 

•••

 

I can hear the children outside playing.  Their screams ring in my ears as I picture them playing tag or catch.  I feel the rage building in my gut, down where I should feel nothing.  But it’s there all the same, a vicious knot of anger pulsing across my body.  I remember when Zack and Carrie and all the other kids on the block would come over for things like “devil in the ditch” or “werewolf,” which was a combination of hide-and-seek and tag that we played after dark.  I was the best at that, dressing in black head to toe and lying in plain sight while the rest got caught. 

 

A tear falls down the side of my face, tickling mercilessly at the nerve endings there.  Closing my eyes, I try to block out the voices below, and soon my pillow is damp. 

 

I thrash my head wildly from side to side, having no other release for the tension built up inside.  My mother finds me minutes later and can do nothing but hold me until I stop.  I should be thanking her, but all I feel is revulsion.  Turning my head away from her, I refuse to answer any of her inquiries. 

 

She leaves after a half hour of interrogation, her own disgust at what I’ve become evident in the manner in which she curses me for not allowing her to help.  What the fuck can she do?  My mother slams the door on the way out, and I don’t see her until the next morning.

 

•••

 

I awake from a sound sleep, unsure what startled me.  The heavy darkness tells me it’s late, stars subdued by dense clouds.  A dim street light flickers off on the periphery, unable to penetrate this hard blackness pressing upon me. 

 

I am left with nothing but my thoughts – memories that haunt me, a heavy cloak draped across my shoulders, the weight of which keeps me in this bed.  The images swirl around me, mocking what I am.  I curse them silently, holding back the tears that flowed so freely earlier.    

 

But I refuse to abandon this burden, its crutch an easy fit as I lay here.  I close my eyes and can feel the Earth tumbling around me.  Vertigo threatens to overwhelm me as I begin a mantra, working to lull myself back to sleep, yearning for the peace that awaits me there. 

 

In dreams, I can run again.  In dreams, I am free.  In dreams, I’m the man I used to be, the one that did not lose his wife, did not lose his job, did not lose his world. 

 

In dreams, I am human once more.

 

But things are never that easy.  I cannot will myself to sleep, and instead, the nausea induces a fit of vomiting.  I turn my head to the side – though I worry I may regret that action – and wait for it to subside. 

 

Once it is done, I can do nothing else but wait for my mother to clean me in the morning. 

 

•••

 

My father comes into the room, wide shoulders slumped as he looks down at me.  His face tells it all, though he tries to mask it with his words:  “. . .so sorry. . .”  “. . .wish it had been me. . .”  “. . .I’ve stopped drinking for you. . .”  “. . .if only I’d let you drive. . .”

 

He doesn’t mean any of it.  The scorn he feels for me contorts his face, twitching his lip as it ripples across his brow.  He can barely stand to look at me, choosing to stare out the window instead. 

 

Whispering past snatched breaths, I ask him again to help me in the only way he can.  His head drops, staring through me, searching for the boy I once was. 

 

A pain catches in my ribs (something I know is only a shadow of that feeling) and I worry he will deny me again, blaming my mother, refusing to take the responsibility that must be his. 

 

“She’s at the store.”  His voice is a whisper, and in its soft utterance I hear something different. 

 

His hand reaches down past my head – still as big as I remember it when I was nine – and flips a switch on the ventilator.  I look up into his eyes, and for the first time, I see tears welling there.  My mind hesitates, bothered about the wisdom of my decision.  I consider relenting, but the world starts to close in on me, like a fade-out in a motion picture.  I can no longer see things at the edge of my vision; my father is eaten up by my leaving and I go to cry out.

 

But I have no air to form words, and quicker than I came into this world, I leave it for what I hope is something better.

 

•••

 

It is hours before my mother returns.

 

I do not see her enter my room.

 

I do not hear her scream.

 

I do not experience her breakdown.

 

I do not suffer any more.

 

 

 

Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

New elephant fiction based upon the image below.  Enjoy.

 

 

Remembrance

By Chris Beckett

 

 

He kept it hidden under his bed in a small lockbox.  Girlfriends had asked what he kept hidden, using their naughty bits as bribery, but Perry had never brought any of them into his confidence.  He wasn’t able to talk about it, and if they saw what he kept in the box they would only see a rock.  But for Perry, it was so much more.  It was a reminder of how precious life is and how quickly it can be snuffed out.

 

•••

 

Perry knew what was coming.  Twenty-five years, what newspaper could pass up a silver anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of a young boy?  Of course, everyone had given him up for dead over the past quarter century.  But Perry knew better.  Perry had been there.  It was a rare day that he did not think about the blood on his hands.

 

•••

 

Perry had only been nine when the boy went “missing.”  People all around the county assumed he was kidnapped – raped and murdered in the back of some van – left to ponder “what could have been” in his afterlife, while his remains settled into the mud of one of the many rivers surrounding the town. 

 

That wasn’t how it went, but Perry had been unable to tell anyone what he knew.  At first, he was scared people might be able to link him to the whole mess.  But nobody came around to ask him any questions.  Days passed into weeks and on into months, and Perry’s young mind raced with the trouble he would be in for not having come forward sooner. 

 

So, he kept quiet.  What else could he do?  He was responsible, wasn’t he?

 

•••

 

At least Perry had been smart enough to retrieve the rock and to use gloves for that chore.  He’d learned that one from watching Perry Mason and Columbo with his Granddad. 

 

He wasn’t sure what a scientific analysis of the rock would uncover, but he knew – even when he was young – that nothing good would come of it.  Since then, he’d kept it locked away from prying eyes, only pulling the instrument of that boy’s fate out on very rare occasions, making sure always to use gloves.  It seemed the wisest thing to do.

 

••• 

 

It had taken years for Perry to come to grips with what had occurred on that day.  The cause of many a nightmare when he was young, Perry had only been able to comprehend the gravity of the situation in recent years, and even that understanding was suspect at best. 

 

But there was a resignation to the experience that had developed in recent memory.  There was no way he could return to that day, as much as he would like to have done so, and there was no bringing back that boy – a boy he’d not even known, not then.  During the intervening years of course, many stories had been written on the subject, and Perry had them all, carefully cut out and pasted into a morbid scrapbook that rested beneath his lockbox. 

 

Despite that resignation, he’d still been unable to move on from it all.  But that didn’t matter now; Perry had made a decision, and it seemed right to do it now when all the remembrances would be seeing print.  He’d been working toward this day for so many years without realizing, and now, he was content in knowing that soon he would finally be at peace.

 

•••

 

It had made the front page – not the top fold, but still significant.  Perry read it with zeal and found himself shuddered by a feeling of déjà vu.  But that was to be expected. 

 

Perry had come out to the field where it had all happened twenty-five years prior.  Pulling a key out of his pants pocket, he unlocked the metal case and lifted the rock out of its shelter with gloved hands.  He needed to do this in his own way.  Setting it on the uneven ground, Perry stood back up and admired the rock for a minute, taking every detail for the last time.

 

For a second the late autumn sunshine glinted off the stone and Perry could see the blood staining the rock at his feet.  In his mind’s eye, it was a vivid red, creating a bright sheen on the rock’s surface. 

 

Out, damn’d spot!
 

A knot grew in his stomach as Perry slid the gloves off his hands, pulling slowly at each finger in turn.  Bending over, he allowed his hand to hover over the nondescript stone.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.  Nobody was there to hear him.  Looking up, Perry soaked in the scenery a final time before closing his eyes and dropping his hand onto the cold stone.

 

•••

 

When he opened his eyes again, he had been transported to another dimension, just as that boy had been so many years ago.  It was disconcerting, Perry was surrounded by darkness.  A harsh cold swept over him as he pulled his body in tightly and wished for it to be over soon.  And he wondered . . . whatever happened to that boy who had disappeared so long ago? 

 

A minute passed.  Then another.  And soon after, Perry fell asleep in the harsh environment never to awake again.

 

 

Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

So,

Here’s my second pass at the short story I am working on. Not as much needs to be done at this point, really just tightening it up for me. Choosing just the right word, finding that exact turn of phrase, excising whatever doesn’t work (usually it involves an explanation of what the character is trying to get across in his/her words, something that isn’t necessary. If the readers don’t get it, I didn’t do my job).

At this point, I pass my draft to my wife for her input, and she always gives me suggestions that vastly improve the work. And this time was no different. She read it through a couple of times, and something was nagging at her. Finally, she fell upon what bothered her - a section dealing with “fame” - and when she told me that should come out, I completely agreed. It didn’t fit with the rest of the story as it had been told and really came out of nowhere. So, one more rewrite, excising one relatively well-sized section along with a couple of my favorite turns of phrase (that phrase again), and I should have a final piece I am happy with sometime later today. I’ll post when it’s done, and when I have time.

Thanks,
chris

Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

So.

Instead of boring anyone with the revised text from my previous post - which will be going through a few more drafts - I chose to show you what my drafts look like after I’ve had the chance to read over them and make corrections, additions, excisions (is this a word?), and any other “ions” that make it better.  Hope you enjoy, and I will drop the final piece in once I have finished it, with a few more posts like this one in between.

chris

 

Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

 

True Story

By Chris Beckett

 

 

I was waiting for a call from some guy I didn’t know so that he could interview me over the phone and let me know whether my unemployment would be halting any time soon or not.  It had been a few days since my initial interview with the store manager, but he’d explained that his district manager needed to speak to me as well since I had applied to be a manager trainee (which I came to find out is just a glorified assistant manager who gets to work more hours and is expected to one day take over his/her own store within the company). 

 

I’d gone out and bought a phone with an answering machine just so I wouldn’t miss this call.   I needed this job, if for no other reason than my last check from the school – which luckily paid salaries in 52 allotments so that I had an income through the summer – had just arrived in the mail and I needed something resembling equal pay in order to survive while also paying child support.

 

My existence had become pretty dismal at this point with desperation setting in.  And now, with this as my best option, I waited around my efficiency (read: one combination living/dining/bedroom sans closet, one cramped kitchen/minor hallway, and one diminutive bathroom) for some news.

 

Why hadn’t he called?  I checked my messages again, but the tape was still blank.  I’d called the manager yesterday, just to follow up, and he assured me I would be getting a call soon enough. 

 

So, what to do?  Better turn on the tube.

 

I didn’t have cable at the time (couldn’t afford it, still can’t for that matter, not for the exorbitant cost per usage ratio that I would incur). 

 

I grabbed the remote, slid my thumb over the power button and the screen burned to life as a skyscraper smoked and flamed.  I had no idea what the hell it was all about.  It was too early for drama, but maybe the networks had juggled their new fall schedule and thrown some shitty soap opera earlier in the morning to go against Regis. 

 

I watched for a minute, but without any type of context, I didn’t stick around.  Clicking the button on the remote, I darted over to the next channel, AND I SAW THE SAME THING. 

 

What the fuck was going on?

 

My mind was racing now, not sure what I was watching, realizing this must be live, but how could it be, and really who could generate such a hoax if it wasn’t live, but they weren’t saying much, a few hems and haws, they had no clue what happened either, and then a speck slipped across the screen – or half the screen – and the second building beside this first exploded near its top, smoke and ash and debris spewing out in all directions, and they cut to the newscasters.

 

And they sat mute.  Shock, horror, fear – it all mixed on their face.

 

And I waited for some explanation.

 

Planes.  They flew planes into the World Trade Center buildings.  I sat, and I watched, and still my mind was unable to wrap itself around this warped ideal that had caused people to hijack planes and fly them into skyscrapers.  Why?  What the fuck did those people do to them?

 

And sickened, I resolved to turn off the TV.

 

•••

 

But that lasted only a minute, and soon I flicked it back on.  I sat, and I ate my stale cereal, and I waited for news, anything that might help put this into a better understood context – a context that did not surface that day.

 

I watched the towers burn, and I saw people jumping out of windows, afraid to stay in what was the most untenable situation I could imagine.  Did they have a chance to call their families?  Did they speak with their sons?  Their daughters?  What did they say?  Could they even mention the situation they were in, or would they protect their children to their last breath? 

 

How’s your day?  What are your plans for tonight?  Be good.  I’ll see you . . . .

 

What would I do?

 

•••

 

I moved about my confined space, an area where I had lain for months feeling sorry for myself.  Sorry that I got divorced.  Sorry I was now alone.  Pissed at my ex-wife because she “took” my kids from me, forced my hand, made me divorce her; I couldn’t live with her and now she’d won.  She had the kids full time, and I only got to see them on her schedule because “they needed a schedule after the shit I put them through.”  And even then, it was questionable whether they would go with me or not.  If they cried, if they were uncomfortable, I couldn’t very well tell them they had to get in my car “because it was the schedule.”  So, I would end up not even spending time with them the afternoons I should have.

 

But

 

I could see them.  I knew they were right down the road.  I knew they were safe and that their mother loved them and was taking care of them the best she knew how.  I had my children.  I could call my children.  I could tell them I loved them, and would eventually get to hug them again. 

 

The people trapped in the towers. 

 

They had none of that.  It was all taken away by madmen.  Irreversible and inconceivable.

 

•••

 

And now.  Six years later.  Do I understand it any better?  I don’t think so.  I’ve never been in a fight, let alone considered killing someone else.  So the answer has to be no.  Despite all the “facts” that I have accumulated, I have no idea what the fuck happened that day.

 

All I know is that tonight I got to tuck my sons in bed.  I gave them a kiss and a hug and I told them again that I love them.  And they told me they love me. 

 

And that is the greatest gift in the world.

 

Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

 

Blood Runs Deep

By Chris Beckett

 

 

You look just like your mother.
 

Shihong could not remember a time in her life when that mantra had been absent.  As a young child, the girls had convinced her it was a good thing, something for which Shihong should be proud.  But as she got older, it felt more like a curse.

 

Shihong never got to know her mother well, she having passed away when the girl was only six, and despite arguments on scientific grounds, she doubted she ever had a father.  Having no other family, the girls immediately took her in and gave her as good a life as they were able.  It had been Shihong’s Mom that watched over them for so many years, and they could do nothing less for her own child.  In hindsight, Shihong’s life was not as bad as some of her classmates had wanted to believe.  The girls even managed to keep her hidden away from their employer until she was almost in her teens, something for which she was grateful knowing now what she was ignorant of then.  It was a hard life, but somehow Shihong persevered.

 

When discussing her childhood, many people jump to the conclusion that Shihong never went to school, running the streets like some Katzenjammer Kid in a bad 1940s film.  This was never the case.  The girls made sure she was in school every day, didn’t matter if she was sick or not, she was there, or they made sure she regretted staying home.  After the first few years, Shihong never missed a day of school right up to graduation, which was surprising considering how far outside the clique boundaries she orbited. 

 

Shihong loathed the pretentiousness that hung over the entire school, especially the jocks with their chests puffed out, talking as if they knew something of the world, bragging about their “conquests.”  What did they really know?  By the time she was a junior in high school, Shihong had been experiencing the callous indifference of life for over half a decade while most of the posers surrounding her were at least fifteen years from any true understanding of life, if they ever managed it at all.  And although most of them were unable to articulate it, they could all tell just by the way Shihong held herself as she passed through the halls that she was different.  Whether fear or jealousy or an unconscious grasp of their own shortcomings, they all gave Shihong a wide berth for which she was grateful.  She heard enough sad stories at work to last ten lifetimes.

 

But Shihong loved books, and she craved knowledge.  It was this thirst, more than anything, that kept her in school.  She graduated at the top of her class but refused to give a speech, believing what she had to say would have flown over the heads of eighty percent of those in attendance while probably offending the other twenty percent.  Colleges showed interest, but Shihong was afraid the classes would fail to keep her interest and chose to continue her own education through the local library.  Not only was this less painful for her, but it also allowed Shihong the freedom to work any night she wished absent the anxiety that came from arbitrary deadlines.

 

So it was, finally of an age to choose for herself, that Shihong followed her now deceased mother into the skin trade.  Some of the girls acted as if they wanted to exclude her and made obtuse comments to that effect.  But if that was the case, why hadn’t they spoken up when their pimp had finally discovered the cute twelve-year-old living rent-free in his flophouse and thrown her out on the corner with all the other girls? 

 

Once she was shoved onto that corner, Shihong took up smoking.  Their pimp, Lenny, liked it because it made her look just that much older, but for Shihong, it calmed her nerves and was something she could control in an uncontrollable environment.  The refrain “you look just like your mother” increased once again at this point.  Her Mom had also been a smoker, and many of the girls told Shihong that not only did the cigarette in her mouth bring back intense memories, but the way she held it – between the very tips of her middle and index fingers – was also eerily reminiscent of her mother. 

 

Despite the ruthless nature of their trade, the girls still watched out for Shihong, and on at least one occasion, Shihong was happy to have a guardian angel watching over her.  As he was walking toward her, she could tell the guy was hopped up on something.  Xiaoli had crossed in front of Shihong, hoping to deflect his attention from the jail bait, but the guy had been insistent, and the girls knew they couldn’t turn away tricks because Lenny always had a bottom girl keeping an eye on them.  Unable to persuade him, Xiaoli deferred to Shihong and watched the two head back upstairs into the flophouse.  Seconds later, Xiaoli followed and settled in around the corner from the room. 

 

It wasn’t long – five minutes, maybe less – before Xiaoli heard banging coming from the corner room.  Jumping up, Xiaoli heard Shihong’s first screams rip through the thin walls sending shivers up the older girl’s spine.  Rushing in (first lesson: palm the lock so it looks like you’re turning the latch and leave yourself an out), Xiaoli reached down for the crowbar behind the dresser.  The client, fetid cellulite rippling from the strain, was on top of Shihong threatening to crush her in the bed if he was unable to suffocate her first.  Xiaoli brought the heavy iron bar down on his plump head multiple times, blood spattering in all directions, staining the wood floors as it tie-dyed the fraying sheets.  Shihong was frantic and took the rest of the night to calm down while the other girls disposed of the body.  But the next day she was back to school, and nobody ever talked about it again. 

 

Oddly enough, when she was older – but hardly much bigger – Shihong had little trouble with her clients and rarely encountered a rape scenarist, which seemed to be a common theme for the rest of the girls.  This latter fact she kept to herself, preferring not to rock the boat now that she was a peer.  For a long time, this unique shift in sentiment was a mystery to Shihong, and she had other matters weighing on her mind as it was. 

 

Shihong’s smoking had incited a cancer of the mouth that was particularly virulent.  The cancer was unique, one that most doctors would find impossible to treat effectively.  But making one’s living on the street brings with it little in the way of health insurance, so Shihong was forced to go to a chop shop and have the cancer cut out.  The doctor, who looked more like a trash man than a physician, told Shihong he hoped all the cancer was gone, but he really couldn’t be certain.  It was this harshest of realities that left Shihong with a large hole in her cheek – just as her mother had incurred many years before.

 

Shihong took to wearing face paint in an attempt to distract clients from the absence of flesh on her face.  She worried about finding other work and wondered how she would fare in a society she had avoided all her life.  But instead of scanning employment ads, Shihong found herself acquiring more clients than she had at any time before.  At first she denied it, but eventually Shihong came to understand it was her disfigurement that not only elicited the best from her clients but also brought more tricks to her corner.  Most of them were gentle and would ask if they could touch her cheek when they were with her.  Shihong often said yes, and was always surprised at the affection she felt for them whenever they touched her there, as softly as if they were caressing a newborn. 

 

It had been a good life, and Shihong felt no regrets at the path she had taken.  But eventually the cancer caught up to her – it always does – and when she began having unbearable pains in her chest, she knew what it was even if she didn’t wish to admit it.  After months of enduring the pain, Shihong went back to the same doctor she had seen before.  He told her there was nothing he could do.  It was too widespread and far too close to her heart and lungs for him to be able to operate successfully.  Maybe if she could go to a local hospital – 

 

But that wasn’t an option.  Shihong continued to work for as long as she could and managed to hide her pain from the other girls for nearly a year.  But one day it became too much, and Shihong found herself lacking the strength to get out of bed.  When Xiaoli found her laying there, eyes unable to focus, she knew immediately what was going on.  It was just like Shihong’s mother all over again.

 

And now Shihong sits here, only thirty years old and far past her time on this Earth, and she looks at her own daughter ready to turn five and leave for school, and Shihong worries about how much little Jiao looks like her, and how much she must look like her grandmother and what that will mean for her. 

 

Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

 

Tonight I Sleep

By Chris Beckett

 

 

I wander aimlessly,

The horizon a blank slate,

My steps nothing but random thoughts. 

 

Remembering little of the past days,

All before me is empty,

A return to the day I was born.

 

Reaching back, I haunt my memory,

Searching.  Frustrated.

Longing for understanding.

 

A gun, “I can see you.”

A loud crack.  I hit the floor;

A haze engulfs me.

 

Voices carry.  A sweet susurrus lapping

At the shores of my consciousness.

I hear its murmur but nothing more.

 

And then – sharp focus –

My chest tightens and that voice

Returns, “I can see you.”
 

What does it mean?

How could I know?

And my mind drifts with my body.

 

With nothing to anchor me,

I continue for days

Solace a meaningless word.

 

Day and Night merge,

My compass without bearings

I give up, go limp, fall.

 

That’s when I see it:

A break in the clouds

Delicate webs parting slowly.

 

The mast rises high up ahead,

Announcing its arrival while

The main vessel remains shrouded.

 

A chill runs my spine,

Shooting across my back

As it raises the hair on my neck.

 

I can’t explain this feeling.

Is it fear?  Anxiety?

Or something else entirely?

 

I look down now and realize

That I no longer walk –

Must not have for a long time.

 

The sense of flying overwhelms me,

A revelation that leaves me

Wondering how did I not know?

 

The rolling mist fades more than moves,

Making way for the scarlet ship

Propelled by nothing, moved by everything.

 

And again, that voice,

“I can see you.”

But this time it’s familiar.

 

A mixture, like a good recipe,

Nothing distinct and yet wholly its own.

My son/grandmother/father/mother.

 

They all talk to me, speak

As they once spoke.  And their

Sum total comprises that voice.

 

As too does the one that shot me.

I hear its faint tone lying in wait

Hoping to disrupt me.

 

But it will not happen.

I know who I am now.

I know where I am now.

 

Floating with purpose,

I move to the great vessel

Approaching from beneath.

 

It is something brand new to me

And something as old as time.

It is as it has always been.

 

Coming over the side, I spy

The crowd on deck and my heart jumps

As it has not for some time.

 

My family is waiting for me

As I have waited for them.

It has been lonely all these years.

 

And he is there as well,

Forgiven in a way I’d not thought possible,

And yet my heart does not darken at his presence.

 

He took them from me –

All of them –

And I vowed revenge.

 

But when it was time for that,

My hand faltered

Because I was not that man.

 

And now understanding floods me,

Threatening to overwhelm that which I once was,

But a comfort to that which I now am.

 

It has been a long journey,

But tonight I will sleep as

I have not for a long time.

 

Tonight I will sleep with my family.

Tonight I will sleep with my enemy.

Tonight I will sleep forever.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

 

 

HOW?

By Chris Beckett

 

 

Boots scrape through rough gravel as I walk across the dull gray expanse.  The sound echoes softly in my ears, as if from far away, and I wonder again if I should have come here.  At the edge of my vision, I spy figures moving in the ruins – the emaciated ghosts of the prisoners that were sent here to their deaths.  I squint hard, looking for you both, but the images remain indistinct. 

 

When I inquired as to a guide in the village, nobody would speak with me.  I understand better now that cold response.  All joy has been leeched from this place, replaced by shadows of the horror that lived here decades earlier.  I try to think happy thoughts but find it difficult, able only to consider the bloody history that surrounds me.  Shoulders heavy, I plod forward, determined not to give in as I have done so many times before.

 

The old buildings have crumbled during the intervening years, nobody to take care of them, none willing to observe the decay as it set in.  They speak to me – these rotting husks – imparting the atrocities that inhabited this field, and still inhabits it today.  Their sullen whispers send shivers through me as a stinging tear forms against my wishes.  Clutching at the air, fists flexing without thought, I let the pain wash over me, hoping it won’t follow when I leave. 

 

Again I ask myself, why did I travel all the way out here?  What do I hope to accomplish?  Am I looking for answers?  I don’t know.  I’ve avoided this journey for too long and whatever comes of this, it’s important that I find something to close the wounds laying on my soul. 

 

It’s a fool’s errand.  There is no solace here.  No retribution. 

 

I cast my gaze around, taking everything in.  Tiny islands of grass vainly spread across the hardened dirt – testaments to the hope found in all life, examples of the futility that defines this place.  A pall hangs over this land, a stultifying odor more hinted at than genuine.  I close my eyes and see the ashes floating across the winds, mixing with the dirt at my feet, spreading over everything like some gruesome snow flurry.  It is this that I smell, that I feel coursing coldly through my veins.  It is alive, and it eats at me as I try to work out the contradictions racing through my mind.    

 

It’s years since you died – only months apart as it should have been – and only now do I find the courage to visit this place where you first met.  How could you have discovered love in such an ugly place?  Did you need to retreat from the horrors, to discover solace and warmth in each other’s arms?  Or was it something else, something more mundane that brought you together in this hell?  No matter, it happened.  A miracle in a sea of filth. 

 

Bending down, I run my fingers over the gnarled wire that seems to grow from the earth.  So ruddy, I wonder if it’s rust or what’s left of the blood that flowed so readily here. 

 

I don’t know if you can hear me, but I can feel you in this place.  I wanted to tell you I’m a father.  It sounds foolish when I consider it, like I’m still playing at being grown up, but it’s true.  Dieter Ahrends.  I can still hear his breathing in my ear as I rocked him to sleep on my shoulder last night.  Every time I look at him I think of you, and I wonder, how can I expect to be a good father? 

 

It wasn’t planned.  Truth be told, I didn’t want to be a father.  It scared me when Ariana told me, and I thought about leaving.  I tried to explain my fears to her, but she just looked at me with those hurt eyes and crushed my heart.  I couldn’t leave then.

 

And now. 

 

I’m glad I stayed.  Dieter is . . . amazing – so tiny and delicate, and yet so full of life.  How could I not love him?  But I wonder if this euphoria will last, or will genetics kick in.  Because how can I hope to be a good parent when I now know who you were?  It’s almost funny – me, the son of an SS-Gruppenführer and Aufseherin, a good father.

 

I take a deep breath, my shoulders easing just a little.  What I needed to do, I’ve done.  My wife waits for me with our son.  I look around once more and although the ghosts still haunt my vision, I feel relieved. 

 

I can finally go home.

 

Originally published at Maineline Musings. You can comment here or there.

 

Sand In My Toes
By Chris Beckett
 

 

I remember the day you left.  I was so angry.  Mom tried to talk to me, but I wouldn’t have any of that.  Like any kid, I preferred to be miserable alone, but needed to make enough of a scene so that everybody knew I was unhappy – the center of attention without acknowledging it.  Of course, Dad just sat in front of the television watching the game, which was typical.  I’m not sure how I could have expected anything more from him?

 

It was hard; I was only seven.  How was I supposed to understand?  For so long, I resented you for abandoning me like that.  I’m sorry.

 

I come out here whenever I’m home now.  Running my fingers across the smooth stones, I stretch back through scattered memories, searching for one I recognize, for a stone we might have skipped across the river that used to run through here.

 

The state dammed it up quite a few years back, sent all the water toward the farms on the other side of the next town.  Maybe you heard.  But I don’t know.

 

Not a day goes by I don’t think of you, wonder what you’re doing, imagine what we could be doing together if you were still around.  It’s foolish, I know, but it’s what I do.  I can dream, can’t I?

 

On some level, I think I’ve finally come to terms with the whole thing.  I needed years of therapy, which I only agreed to once my first marriage went to hell.  But that’s another story, and one I’m not ready to discuss. 

 

Shit, what a life.

 

It wasn’t that I couldn’t comprehend the realities in my head.  You were the older brother.  You were the one that could swim.  I wasn’t strong enough, and I even had trouble with a life jacket, always felt like I was sinking despite its buoyancy.  But none of that mattered.  In my heart, I couldn’t reconcile the fact that I hadn’t saved you. 

 

To be honest, when you first started flailing I thought you were pulling my leg, trying to scare me.  That wouldn’t have been beyond you.  I sat there in the sand watching you splash around, expecting you to stop suddenly and swim back over to shore.  But when the splashing stopped, I couldn’t see you.  I had no idea what to do, I swear.  I wanted to rush in and save you, wanted to swim out to where the water rippled softly, but I was scared.  I couldn’t move. 

 

So I sat there, pulling my knees up to my chest, worrying my toes into the sand.  (I still have trouble with grit between my toes.)

 

There are some mornings I wake up, and for a moment I forget and call out your name.  It’s a reflex, probably just a specter of my dreams, but for that split second my heart skips and I wonder what we might do today. 

 

But then I remember and pull myself back under the covers. 

 

Originally published at Maineline Musings. Please leave any comments there.

So,

Last week was school vacation week and after both my sister and I hit Washington D.C. last year - on separate occasions - we thought it would be cool to take a family trip down to the capital.  My two sons were very much into it after showing off the photos I took while Dan and I trekked around the city for a few hours after the Small Press Expo last fall.  So, it was just a matter of making the plans and doing it.

Originally published at Maineline Musings. Please leave any comments there.

It’s April 5, and despite the fact that the ground was clear of snow yesterday and Spring seemed to be making its way to us, this is what I woke up to this morning.  A couple of pictures for your enjoyment, from my back steps around 6:30am. 

SPRING IS HERE!!!!

Originally published at Maineline Musings. Please leave any comments there.

So,

I’ve had this account set up for a while and wondered what to do with it, planning on checking it out at my first spare moment.  And of course, the best laid plans . . .

Anyway, I figured I should put something up, even if it is short. 

So here it is.  Something short.