New Beginnings

Leona crawled across the plush red seats and looked out the window just as the train was pulling into the station. She could hear the shrill whistling of the steam and the screeching of steel- on- steel; could feel the jerking and tugging as the cars settled into place.

It was night outside- December- only a few days before Christmas. There was snow on the ground, in the air, falling silently, softly, as if the flakes were afraid of being heard. It was the snow you knew was there because it was so quiet. The whole world stands still when it snows like this.

Outside the window the world was dark and lonely, populated only by shadows. The buildings of Main Street were a mass of black. Dark, thin shapes protruded from the ground— streetlamps left unlit. The only light was the soft yellow glow coming from within the train station.

“Come along, dear.” A smooth hand, long fingers bare except for a wedding ring, reached out for Leona. The voice was soft, like the snow, afraid of being heard. Mama was tired from having to hold on to little baby Herman, who was one-year-old and cranky from the long journey.

Leona hesitated. The world outside was cold and gloomy. Empty. Once they left the station that was all there would be; an endless abyss of darkness in the eyes of the six-year-old girl. 

But Papa was there, in the station waiting for them. She had not seen him in so long and had grown so much since he had left New York. She hoped he recognized her.

She took her mama’s hand and clutched her small suitcase with the other.  Mama carried Herman and her travel bag; the porter would get the rest.

They stepped briefly into the bitter cold as they walked across the platform towards the warmth of the station. The arctic air bit at Leona’s cheeks. She wanted to push her wool scarf further up her face but she didn't want to let go of Mama or her suitcase.

They were soon inside, though; all of them tangled up in the tender embrace of Papa, who had lost weight and now had a thick brown beard. He laughed at everything and Leona felt a much better. Mama beamed with joy for the first time since Papa had left. Even sleepy Herman perked up a little when Papa took him into his arms. In that moment, with them all united as a family again, everything felt just right. However, as they headed towards the door to leave, Leona shrunk closer to Papa, who was carrying a lantern to guide them to their new home. That moment of happiness was brought to an abrupt end as the door closed behind them and they were walking back into the night.

Back into the cold and, suddenly, the wind; a wind that never seemed to stop. It had come out of no where and it blew and blew the whole time they were walking to their new home.

“It’s because there’s nothing out here to stop it,” said Mama, adjusting the blanket covering Herman so that the wind would not get to him.

Leona knew that tone in Mama’s voice. It was the same voice she used back when they were still all together back in the cities, in New York, when Papa wanted to move out west. Mama had insisted that there was nothing out there: no people, no opportunities, nothing. But Papa had been in contact with a friend who had told him about an opportunity to buy a dry goods store in a small town in the Dakotas. The town was on the rail line, there was a space above the store for them to live, and the population was (slowly) growing.  Papa won the debate, pointing out that this could be the only opportunity they could have to get out of the dirty, smelly, crime-ridden city. Out west the land was unspoiled, the air clean, and the people good.  Papa had won, and obedient, genteel Mama had let him head out west first to get things prepared for their arrival.

Leona had been excited when Papa talked about moving out west. There would be new places to explore, new animals to watch, and new friends to make.

But she had been frightened, too.

“The Indians will get you and scalp the golden curls right off your head,” said her cousin, Edmund, tugging on her pigtails.

“You’ll get lost in a blizzard,” said Grandmama Bertha, “or sucked up in a tornado. The wind will swoop down right outta the sky and whisk you away.”

“Just don’t get trampled by a herd of buffalo,” said Uncle Harvey.

So many scary, bad things that could happen! Did Papa really think it would be safer out there? But Leona had even less choice in the matter than Mama.

Now, looking around the town, Leona wondered about Papa’s choice. Mama was right: there was nothing beyond the town. The road they were on seemed to come from nothing and end in nothing. The buildings on Main Street were so small and short compared to the tall buildings of the city! They were all made of wood, too. There was no brick or concrete in sight. The town was absolutely silent. Back home there were always dogs barking, babies crying, and traffic on the streets with people shouting and wagons clattering, even in the middle of the night. And it was never so dark! It was as if the train station and Papa’s lone lantern were the only lights around from there to the cities. The swinging glow from the lantern barely pierced the darkness, avoiding any dark nook or cranny, not even straying to the porches of the post office, tailor, or bank. It only lit the way immediately in front of them, seeming to cling to Papa just as Leona did.

Finally, they reached their new home. It was a two-story, wood frame structure, with the store on the first floor and their home on the second. Papa had kept the stove going so that by the time they got there it was toasty warm. The top floor was not much larger than their apartment back in the cities, with a kitchen, sitting area, and two bedrooms. It was strange not to hear neighbors through thin walls. The rooms and furniture were simple, but Mama would fix that up soon enough. She had always been able to make any space look pretty. Leona stood at the front window, looking out into the snowy night and down onto the empty street. She thought she saw an Indian creeping around, but Mama told her not to be silly and Papa said there were no Indians nearby. That made Leona feel a little better, but not much, especially when Papa added that it could just be a coyote.

Leona could not sleep that night as she lay in bed in her new home. The silence of the new town was too loud for her ears, and the questions that plagued her mind were no help: What was there going to be in the morning, when the sun finally came up and wiped away the darkness?  What about Indians and buffalo and tornadoes? Or coyotes? And could they really be happy being surrounded by nothing after being surrounded by everything?

Only the future held the answers, and the future, with all of its answers, seemed as far away as the empty horizon.

Late Night Drive

Driving home from work
Thinking of everything that's gone wrong
Everything that is still going wrong
Tears run down my cheeks.
I don't want to go home
I just want to drive
I want to escape
I want to disappear forever.
I take random turns
Drive down random roads
Looking for somewhere safe
Somewhere I can be alone.
But there is no where
And no matter what I do
No matter how "random" I drive
I'm still heading in the direction of home
Realizing there is no other option.
"Lean on Me" comes on the radio
As I pull into the drive
Even after turning off the engine
I sit in the car
The song echoes in my mind
First I think it's mocking me
But maybe it's a sign
So I send out a text
And wait for a reply
With tears running down my cheeks
And when none comes
I wipe away the tears
Accepting that I am alone
Trapped in a life
With no one
No one but myself

Dakota Nice

Back in the fall of 2008, I was a freshman at Northern State University in Aberdeen. A Twin Cities native, I assumed what most people did: Life was safer in the country (yes, at this point I still considered Aberdeen to be "country"). I still took those habitual cautions that I had developed in the cities (lock everything, trust few, carry something to defend yourself at night), but I worried slightly less.

One bitterly cold day that November, in about a 5-minute span of time, I witnessed three things that for me changed and defined how trustworthy I considered my new hometown.

First, I came out of Kessler's grocery store, arm full of groceries, to find one of my car tires flat. Before I had time to be upset, a middle-age gentleman pulled up next to me and offered to help. In below freezing temps, he pulled out an air compressor and inflated my tire.

Just as he was wrapping that up and I was thanking him, a large pick-up roared out of the parking lot and took off down the street.

"Idiot," I thought, for the second writing him off as just another brash guy compensating for something.

Then I saw and heard an elderly lady rushing towards us. "Help!" She cried, "He stole my purse!"

Immediately people sprang into action. One guy was on the phone with 911 in seconds. A cart attendant was asking if anyone got the license plate. Someone ushered the woman inside so she could wait somewhere warm for the police to arrive.

And just like that I learned three things about people out here. 1) Most strangers are kind and will help you any way they can while expecting nothing in return. 2) Not everyone is kind or helpful or even a good citizen. Crimes happen: Theft, arson, child abuse... If you look at crime statistics for the area, they're there. 3) When bad things do happen, there are plenty of good people to help immediately.

Over the years those three things haven't changed, although I have built on them a little. Much depends on where you are raised. After all, cities like Sioux Falls, Bismarck, and Aberdeen are much different than towns like Groton, Gettysburg and Ellendale, or towns further off interstates, like Columbia or Oakes. Then there's the whole East River vs. West River situation, and either side of the Missouri has its own opinion on which people are better.

But at the core of it all lies concepts as old as the prairie itself: Help those in need, give the shirt off your back if necessary; basically, the Golden Rule itself. Today, these concepts are as common to the Dakotas as t-shirts in February, barbequing year-around, and the term "spendy."

As for me, I still take the usual precautions, as everyone should just to be on the safe side. Old habits are hard to break, after all. But strangers don't worry me so much anymore and I try to be a friendly stranger as well.

And I have three cans of Fix-A-Flat in my car trunk just in case I - or anyone else - might need help with a flat tire someday.

Stuck in the Mud

It's weird
How life is such a rush
to get from one point to the next
Yet people say
"Stop and smell the roses"
"Carpe diem"
But when?
Everyday of your life
It's do this
Do that
Move forward
Grow
Change
Expand
And then you reach that point
Where you realize
You don't know where
or how
or why
And you get stuck
And Life's still pushing you
But you're going no where
Just stuck in the mud
Wheels spinning
Trapped
With no where to go

Weekends at the Pool

Sorry about the delay, ya'll. Been super busy and then the motherboard on my laptop fried, so this is the best I've got for now. And no, this isn't a true story.

When I was young, between the ages of seven and nine, the pool at the big hotel downtown was a second home on the weekends, whether I wanted to be there or not. Mum, a housekeeper there, couldn't find anyone reliable to watch me after the one day care I attended was closed down due to too many code violations, so to the pool I went for hours on end every Saturday and Sunday.

There were always plenty of guests there from all over the state, nation, and globe, so I usually just blended right in. No one but the pool attendants knew there was no adult supervising me and the mangers were never around on the weekends. I spent those hours making friends with kids I would never see again and practicing new strokes and holding my breath, which occasionally scared the attendants but they took it all in strides.

I never realized until many years later that I must have been an unspoken secret amongst the pool attendants. No one wanted to lose their job if management found out but they let mum do it weekend after weekend nevertheless. Maybe they thought I was cute. Maybe they didn't really care. I like to think that they were all just good people trying to help out their fellow employee.

One pool attendant was especially kind to me. She always had candy in her big black purse and used to say, "hey Sweetie, have a sweetie," when I was around. She liked to braid my unruly brown hair and tell me that someday I'd be an Olympic swimmer and she could brag about knowing me. I loved her like the sister I never had. During her last shift before leaving for college she gave me an entire bag of Tootsie Rolls and told me to remember her when I was famous and on boxes of Wheaties. I never made it onto any cereal box, but I also never forgot her.

The only real close call I remember was not long before my mum got a new job and I ended my weekends at the hotel. At some point the only people in the pool area were me and a hoard of unruly middle school kids at a birthday party. The parents of said kids had disappeared and the pool attendant was in a huff because kids under the age of 16 weren't supposed to be left alone and she was no one's babysitter (except mine, unofficially). She sent a kid out to get a parent and the adult who returned was in just as big a huff. When the parent pointed out that I wasn't being supervised, the attendant declared that she was my supervisor and it had been cleared with management already. It was a blatant lie said with such gusto that even I believed it for a moment. The adult narrowed her eyes and challenged, "oh really?" She later went to the supervisor on duty, thankfully one to stand behind her employees, and the supervisor also lied and said it was true. I'm not sure how it was all resolved, but the pool attendant continued to work there so somehow we were all saved.

I've got no way to end this story right now, so the end.

A Dark Musing

*For the record, I don't want anyone freaking out upon reading this. This is just a reflection I thought I'd share.*

Have you ever wondered: What's the point?
What are these lies that we tell ourselves to convince us to carry on, to hope, to believe that things will eventually be different?
That the money will come? That the love will last? That the laughter will continue?
Is it simply genetically encoded in us as Homo sapiens--as animals--to push on? Like dogs that still look for affection from the masters that beat them?
What is it? Why?
Is it because we are socially programmed to think that carrying on is the right thing to do, even if it makes us miserable? That we should heed the words of people crushing us while telling us that they are trying to help?

People who try to break free are frowned upon and reprimanded, but why? Because it is wrong? Or because Society is bitter that these people have tried to escape the system that it has worked millenniums to build and maintain?

There are billions of people in the world and yet we are told that each one of us is significant; that the starving child in Africa is just as important as the obese man in the U.K. But really, 99.999999999% of us won't leave so much as a scratch in the world when we die, much less a line in a history book. How significant do you feel now?

"But think of it on a smaller scale," you say. "What about the people around you? What about your friends and family?"
And that's just it.
Perhaps that is the reason there are not massive amounts of suicides on a daily basis as people, one by one, realize their insignificance. Because humans--due to nature or nurture--think of others. (I like to think that the number of people who would rather not hurt anyone far outweigh those who are impartial to inflicting pain.) While individuals may see their own insignificance, others see great significance. And because they do not want to hurt or disappoint, they stick around.
They lie to themselves for the sake of others.
For many, that is why. That is the point. Better to live to keep others happy than to give up to save yourself. It's strength and sacrifice. It's telling lies to spare others the truth. It is the silent battle that must be won.

Update: See My Story on Dakota Fire's Website!

Super cool! I finally found time to find my "Learning to Wave, South Dakota- Style" story on their website and it's a hit! See it HERE.

Down

**This is just a scene that never turned into an actual story. Hope you enjoy reading it anyways!**

That screaming. Every other night Alex would wake up to it, and this night was no different. He clenched his teeth and covered his head with his pillow. Why did she have to scream so loud? He put her in the room furthest from his own and he could still hear it clear as if she was in the room adjacent to him. What was it that tormented her; that plagued her dreams and terrorized the inner-most sanctuary of her mind?

He lay in bed for hours after that but could not fall asleep. The scream always left a disturbed feeling that pained his heart. It was still a few hours before dawn and the brilliant white moon was piercing his curtains when he decided to get up. He paced around his room a few times, poking the dying embers in the fireplace and listening for anymore cries from the girl. There was an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach; his whole body tingled as if it was anticipating something that his own mind couldn’t see coming. Finally, he went to the window and pulled back the curtains.

The dark blue sky was a sea of stars; the moon bigger and brighter than he had seen in years. The entire garden below was a stark contrast of shadow and light.

Someone was standing on the bridge over the pond; a white figure dressed in a flowing white gown, brown hair falling in long waves down her back, being lifted slightly by the weak breeze. Whoever it was had to be freezing, and Alex wondered why that was his first thought as opposed to Why there was someone standing on the bridge. But that was because he knew who it was; the answer was there in his mind, as if it had always been known to him. Her back was to him so he didn’t know what she was doing, be he sensed she was looking into the water, deep into its depths, as if searching her own soul. He knew this because he, too, had done it many times before. As he had told her when she first arrived, the manor was practically built for people suffering from past transgressions.

The woman moved suddenly and he realized that she was climbing onto the wall of the bridge. She stood there for a moment, suspended in space and time; everything suspended in space and time.

“No,” whispered Alex.

She fell. It was the most graceful fall anyone could make, with her arms outstretched and gown fluttering. It wasn’t a dive or a jump or a faint. It was an intentional fall, right into the deep, freezing pond.

As if a switch had been pulled to start up time again, everything began to move very fast. Alex took off running, not even bothering to grab his robe or slippers. Down the long hall with his ancestors glaring down on him, down the grand staircase that had been his mother’s death, down to the garden overcast with the light of the moon, and down into the cold, murky pond.

Down, down, down. Down into the seaweed and slime and sludge of a pond long left to its own will. Down into the bleak, the dismal, the darkness of the unknown. Where was the moon now to give its light? Even it could not reach these depths; even light was forbidden in a place so harsh and unforgiving.

But Alex kept going. Alex was not light, and so he was not afraid of the darkness. He gripped cloth and pulled until he had her wrapped in his arms. Then up he swam out of the deathly depth of the dark and towards the light of the moon; towards life.

He burst through the surface gasping for air, shivering at his cold welcome. At the shore he pulled her up and checked her pale, blue face for life.

“Come on,” he whispered, maybe even praying. “Come on!” He pounded her chest a few times with his fists.

A gasp of air followed by coughing and sputtering. He rolled her onto her side and finally took a moment for himself to breathe normally, too.

She started crying, sobbing, her whole body shaking and heaving as she gasped for air. “No, no, no!” She lay crumbled in a ball on the ground, crying these words.

“No? No?! Listen, lady, you came to me, to my house, for help, to be saved, remember? Now you’re trying to kill yourself at my house? No. I will NOT let you die.”

She said no more so he carried her inside and called a maid to help her get changed. He then stood guard outside her door all night to make sure she wouldn’t attempt anything else while the maid slept in the chair beside her bed.

Learning to Wave South Dakota-Style

People from rural towns always have the impression that people from the big cities are “unfriendly” because we rarely (if ever) wave to strangers as we drive down the highway.

And it’s true. Waving to strangers that you pass on the highway is ridiculous in the cities; you drive past thousands of people a day – you’ll give yourself carpel tunnel waving at all of them. Plus, half of the drivers will think you’re crazy.

For the longest time I couldn’t understand why complete strangers would smile and wave at me as I was cruising down the road. Did I know them? Did they know me? Was it a case of mistaken identity?

            Going off to college in a predominantly rural state meant I passed a lot of people who waved at me as I stared back. It never really bothered me to ask anyone why they did this until my junior year of college.

            My boyfriend is from the whopping huge town of Akaska, S.D. (population 42, but ten times that during fishing season). He has his various opinions about us unfriendly city folk, and one of them is how rude we are because we don’t wave. The first time he made this comment I was riding along with him in his pickup truck.

            “Maybe they don’t wave because they aren’t use to it,” I suggested. “Not everyone was raised to do that.”

            “Well it’s not like it’s that hard,” he said, mocking me as he waved both his hands in the air, only stopping when the unmanned steering wheel started moving us into oncoming traffic.

            “I’m not saying it’s hard, I’m just saying that some people might not know what you’re doing. They’re probably wondering who the big ugly stranger is that’s waving at them.”

            I got a dirty look for this comment, but was unrelenting. “I never knew why strangers were waving at me.”

            “Well now you know,” he said, making his point by waving to someone passing us by. “They ain’t mistaking you for anyone; they’re just trying to be friendly. And you are being rude by not being friendly back.”

            Feeling a little bad for slighting all of these strangers for so many years, I resolved to learn the art of waving – South Dakota-style. Rule one: never take your full hand off the steering wheel – you look too eager. Rule two: Make a choice early on and stick with it – are you waving with all five fingers? One finger (preferably not the middle one)? Two fingers? Rule three: try to smile, or at least look kind of friendly. The effect should be something that looks completely natural.

            I’ve been working on this for half a year now, and I never look natural. When I’m in Aberdeen, I never wave – too many people. Once on the open road, I get so caught up in my music or day dreaming that I don’t notice a car is coming until they’re right beside me. Too late then. It’s even worse when they pass you, waving their friendly wave, and you notice only a split second beforehand; far too short a time to react “causally.”

Once, for a whole two hours coming home from my boyfriend’s place, I never removed my hand from the top of the steering wheel. I waved at every single person that passed me. I don’t think many even saw me in my low-riding Ford Thunderbird. Some looked but did nothing. There were a few, though, that waved back.

And every time I successfully waved South Dakota-style (even though I still looked pretty awkward) I smiled and felt like I had achieved something. 

The Zappas go to K-Mart

Do you remember the Biblical story of Jesus being lost and found in the temple? For three days his parents, traveling in separate caravans, thought Jesus was with the other parent.

            What happened here is kind of like that.

            I grew up in a family of eight. This meant a house with two parents and six kids, in addition to the two dogs, a cat, and the occasional lizard, bird, frog, hamster or goldfish. Disorder was normal, which explains why my 4-year-old brother’s clothes got left behind in the cities on our family vacation to the Black Hills in 1998. Thus we found ourselves at the K-Mart in Sioux Falls. All eight of us, with kids ranging in age from nine months to 12 years.

            I’m not sure when or why we split up, but at some point there were two groups of Zappas trekking through the store that day.

            When we all finally met up in the men’s clothing section, it was realized that the little 4-year-old tike was not with any of us. As the parents yelled at my older brothers and they defended themselves, a voice came on over the loudspeaker:

            “Attention K-Mart customers: Will the parents of Timothy Francis Bobo Zappa please come to the service desk? The parents of Timothy Francis Bobo Zappa to the service desk, please.”

            Let me take this moment to clarify something. All of us kids have nicknames, courtesy of our parents (mostly my dad). Some are normal: my brother Joe’s nickname is simply the Italian word for Joseph, “Giuseppe.” Some are weird: One of my sisters was nicknamed “Buddha Baby” because she was such a chunk as an infant. Somehow Tim ended up with “Bobo,” and whenever we called him by his full name this nickname was tossed in for good measure.

            Because of this, and unknown to us, my 4-year-old my brother legitimately thought “Bobo” was part of his real name.

           Upon hearing the name “Timothy Francis Bobo Zappa,” there was an instant debate over who should be forced to go get him. Who was going to take responsibility for the little blonde kid whose parents were cruel enough to stick “Bobo” in his name? A good 3-5 minutes of heated discussion eventually resulted in the parents’ retrieval of their lost son, but the look of reluctance as they made their way to the service desk has left a lasting impression on us older kids.

            And poor innocent Tim, completely unaware of his little mistake, greeted them as if nothing big had happened. In fact, he was perfectly content when my parents got to him. He had been given a red sucker and was talking cheerfully to the security guard.

            Ever since then, my parents have done better keeping track of their little ones. I’d like to say they’ve done better with nicknames but Maria, the baby in the family, accumulated a nickname longer than John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

            I think my parents should be thankful they never lost “Maria Kathleen Pooky Chop-chop Pooh Bear Tigger Babes Zappa” in a store.

More Musings

“If you were offered a similar job with similar pay, would you stay here or switch?”

“Stay.”

“And why would you stay?”

Laura shrugged. “I like the team.”

“Good enough,” said the supervisor, jotting down her answer and getting back to his work.

Laura went to clock out—on time for the first time in a week. What her supervisor didn’t realize was that she wasn’t looking for a “similar job with similar pay.” She was looking for more. A college graduate can only take retail for so long before something snaps, and she was reaching that point.

Maybe a move to Maine is what I need, Laura thought as she punched in her nine-digit ID number to clock out and then punch in her four-digit code for her locker. It wasn’t like the small city she was in now had anything to offer her. Job hunting was going no where and life was as dull as can be. There was nothing here to stimulate her anymore. Sure, there were some things and some people she would miss, but on a whole…

Laura gathered her things and headed out onto the sales floor. She liked to walk around the store every once in a while after work to see what was going on. She spent so much time in certain areas during the day that it was easy to lose touch with things elsewhere. Besides, mindless meandering gave her time to think.

She had stayed in this city after graduation because she thought her connections would help her find a job. Fail. Then she stayed because she had friends here, but most soon left as well so Fail there, too. She had limited her job search to the state because she didn’t want to be too far from the guy she thought she was going to marry. Well, they were no more, so there was yet another Fail.

Everything was a bust. Best to get out now while she could, right? Maine didn’t necessarily mean a better job, but at least it’d be a change in scenery. Who knows? Maybe it would turn up a job? Maybe a guy? Maybe the key to knocking down her writer’s block. Anything was possible and she wouldn’t know until she tried, right? At least she’d be near the ocean. After living in landlocked states her entire life, that alone could be a game changer somehow.

Laura sighed as she stood in the Home Goods department, looking at wall hangings. She didn’t actually like change and wasn’t exceptionally adventurous. She preferred stability above all else in life. She had been set to settle down and start a family in a few years. Now she would have to start from scratch.

She was looking at a dinnerware set that was on sale when a coworker walked by.

“You should buy it,” he told her.

“On our wages? Yah right!” She laughed.

“Hey, if not now, when?” And with that he walked off.

Should she move? Make a run for it while she still could? Throw caution to the wind?

Hey, if not now, when?

Late Night Escapade

“Okay. The coast is clear.”

“Let’s do this.”

The three of us tumble out of the front seat of the car and rush to the back, popping open the hatch of the SUV and pulling out a door. Yes, a door. Inside a door frame. Three by six and a half feet of wood that we somehow squeezed in the vehicle so that we could sneak it onto campus.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” Jimmy urges. We shut the hatch and on a “one-two-heave” pick up the door and make our way onto the campus green, which is empty this late at night and mostly dark except for a few lamp posts.

“Over here.”

We shuffle to a corner of the green closest to two of the residence halls and set the door down, upright, near one of the lamp posts. As silent and fast as mice, we scurry off to hide behind some nearby hedges.

“Is the camera on?”

“Just a second… Yup, we’re a-go!”

“Ok.” The camera turns to Jimmy for a second. “It’s Friday night just before 2 a.m. The weather is perfect. Our team won the football game earlier so everyone’s out right now partying and getting trashed. That door over there we got from our neighbor who was throwing it out. We’ve decided to repurpose it for the night. It’s says ‘DOOR TO NARNIA,’ and we’re going to see how all the drunk people stumbling back to campus will react.”

We then turn off the camera to preserve the battery, only turning it on when people appear.

We don’t have to wait long. The first batch of people stumbles back from the bars—a couple of girls and guys, yelling and shrieking nonsense.

“Look! There’s a door!” Yells one of the girls. She half runs, half hobbles on her high heels to the door, walks around it a few times, then stops in front of it.

Her friends come join her.

“Open it! Open it!” So one of them does.

“It doesn’t go anywhere.” They’re all bummed for a brief second then one of the guys steps through the door, clearly expecting something to happen.

“Still nothing!” Now they are disgruntled. The same guy who failed to make it to Narnia slams the door shut. It teeters for a second but thankfully doesn’t fall.

“Let’s go. I gotta pee,” whines one the girls.

“And my heels are killing me,” whines the other.

So the troupe trudges off into the night.

A dozen more people go through the same experience with the same reactions. One girl is so upset she screams at the door for a good five minutes until someone yells at her from a window of one of the residence halls.

After an hour we’re getting bored and tired and the hilarity of the joke has died. Just as we’re about to pack it up, though, one lone guy makes his way to the door. Clearly inebriated beyond any kind of functionality, it takes him some time to understand what the sign on the door means. Once he does, he grins and does a little jig.

“Shhhweeeet,” he slurs. Opening the door, he steps through then pauses. He looks around, scratches his head, and then grins again.

“I’m in Narnia!” He shouts in glee before starting to sprint across the green. “Aslan! Where’s Aslan!”

“Quick, let’s follow him!” Suggests Jimmy, so we take off after the surprisingly quick drunkard.

“Aslan!” And wouldn’t you know it? The kid had found “Aslan.”

We can’t help but laugh out loud. The drunk has stopped in front of Halwitz Hall where stand two stone lions. He has thrown his arms around one and is crying, “Aslan! I knew I’d find you here!”

We capture it all on film and then leave drunk and lion alone. With no one around, we load up the door and head home for the night.

“I just realized something,” says Jimmy as we relax in our living room with our beers. It’s a little after 3:30 a.m. “What if that kid comes back looking for the door? He’s going to think he’s trapped in Narnia now!”

We all laugh. “Well, at least he’ll have Aslan!” 

The Sad Man

A sad man in a sad house was finally taken to a sad nursing home where other sad people sat around drooling from their sad mouths and searching hopelessly-wordlessly-through sad eyes.

Happy children with happy smiles would come to visit the sad people and bring light into the sad nursing home. But the sad man sat in his sad room and would not see the happy children, for they reminded him of what he never had.

Bright women with bright eyes would come to talk to the sad people and bring laughter to the sad nursing home. But the sad man sat in his sad room and would not see the bright women, for they reminded him of what he never had.

A writer came to visit the sad people in the sad nursing home. “Tell me your stories,” he told the sad people, but most just stared at him with their sad eyes and mumbled nothings from their sad mouths. The sad man stayed in his sad room, for all of his stories reminded him of what he could have had.

Finally the writer found the sad man in his sad room and asked him for his stories. The sad man shook his sad head and looked around his sad room as if to say, “This is my story.”

The writer was a clever man with a quick mind and a caring heart. He saw the sad man in his sad clothes in such a sad room and he knew the sadness came from somewhere. “Tell me your story. Everyone has a story. Something led you here. Tell me your story.”

The sad man was silent with his sad thoughts but quietly, quickly, his sad words started to fall from his sad lips.

The sad man told of a sad childhood with no mother and a sad father. He told of a sad war where he lost many of his friends and came home to people who didn’t understand his sadness. He told of a beautiful woman with blue eyes and blonde hair who loved him until, in his sad drinking, he got mad and made the beautiful woman sad and took their sad kids and left him to his sadness. He told of how his sad friends who made it through the sad war took a sad way out and he couldn’t help them in time. He told how he almost took the sad way out, too, until he adopted a dog who made him happy until the dog got sick and the sad man was too poor to save his friend and on a sad day in October he put down the last friend he had. Finally, when his sad body was too weak to take care of him, a neighbor helped bring him to this sad nursing home where he would live the last few sad months of his sad life.

“That is indeed a sad story,” said the writer, watching the sad man wipe a sad tear from his sad cheek.

“If you must use it,” said the sad man in a sad, tired tone, “Make it dark, lonely, and painful and shameful. Let others learn from my mistakes. I don’t want anyone to end up sad like me.”

The writer nodded, shook hands with the sad man, and then left the sad room and the sad nursing home.

Shortly afterwards the sad man died his sad death and went to his sad grave. The writer became wealthy and wrote many, many stories, but he never forgot the one about the sad man. Everyday he kissed his happy wife and his happy kids. He did his best to live a happy life so that he would never ever end up like the sad man in the sad room, just as the old man had wished.

The End

Anger Management

“You can call my Cindy, okay?”

My “therapist” gives me this sappy look that’s supposed to look warm and friendly but really just makes me want to throw my cheap hot coffee at her. I raise my eyebrows to let her know I’m unimpressed.

She keeps the smile for a second longer and then lets it go. She has seen my files. She knows why I’m here. For the next hour she asks the usual questions and I give the usual response, which is literally nothing. I hate therapist. I hate doctors and experts and quacks who assume they know everything about me just because they’ve read stuff in fat, dusty old books. As Patient A who has had X, Y, and Z done to her, I clearly must be treated with This and That and a little bit of Those and voila! I shall be cured. But I am not a textbook case. I am me. A person. But no gets that.

When the session is over I drive out to my boyfriend’s ranch. He’s out in the field, combining the winter wheat, but I’m not here to see him. I rummage around his house, find what I need, and drive out to the pit behind the automobile graveyard. Load ‘em up, shoot ‘em out. Back in the day I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. After just a few weeks of practice, I’m almost as good as my boyfriend who has been shooting almost his whole life.  

Blasting the hell out of old cars, empty gas cans, and hundreds of beer bottles. Now that’s what I call therapy. Sometimes, if it’s late or there’s been rain, my boyfriend will come join me. It’s not quality time together, though. There’s no teasing or laughing or flirting. Just bang bang bang bang, reload, bang bang bang bang, reload. He asked me once if I picture certain people in my mind when I shoot. I just shrugged. Usually it’s just mindless. I just do it to settle my nerves. But when the nightmares get bad, when flashbacks threaten to pull me under, then I’m aiming at someone. Someone in particular. Someone who, if he wasn’t already dead, killed in the raid that resulted in my rescue, I would be tracking down right now. But someone else took him out before I got my revenge, so this is my alternative.

I used to draw for therapy. That was back when the only things that upset me were school, friends, or my obnoxious roommate. The me that drew for therapy didn’t know how easy she really had it. I can’t do that anymore. I tried. All I ended up doing was digging the pencil into the paper, carving the word “Fuck” right through the paper into my desk. After I broke the pencil and threw at the wall I decided I needed something that would channel my anger, not try to whitewash it.

“Anger Management.” When they said the two words I thought of the Adam Sandler movie. But instead of Jack Nicholson and a hilarious comedy, I got a dozen “experts” prescribing drugs and telling me “healthy” ways to manage it. Apparently pulling out a small arsenal and shooting inanimate objects in the middle of no where doesn’t count. Maybe if I stopped flushing the meds down the toilet I would be more considerate of their opinions. But the drugs make me feel weird, like there’s a haze between me and the rest of the world, so I avoid them.

Instead, I pelt a rusty Oldsmobile with some .45s and wonder if the continuous recoil from the guns is the actual therapy, kind of like electroshock but with less sizzle and more bang. I wonder what Cindy would think of this therapy, with her sappy smile and crappy coffee. I thank God for a redneck boyfriend who doesn’t mind part of his land being used as a war zone every few days. We both know that’s what it really is. It’s me versus the pent up rage, the confusion, the chaos that is always on the brink of consuming me. I fight it, quite literally, with bullets. It sounds terrible out of context but it is what it is.

I wonder if I’ll ever win. I don’t consider the alternative. When the thought of losing crosses my mind, I head out to the ranch. I grab something heavy and powerful, peg that thought to the side of a dilapidated Dodge, and blast it to pieces. My therapy might be unorthodox, but it sure does work.

Dreams

What are dreams made of?

Are they made of water, meant to drown us in hope and despair, and then evaporate over time?

Are they made of sand, built into lofty castles, only to be dashed away by the surf, or blown away in the wind?

Are dreams made of clouds, that build up into thunderstorms that crash and flash and tear away at the very foundation of our rational, only to dissipate to nothing; to be pulled into wisps that linger only in the most distant region of the sky?

Are they made of flowers, that look pretty and smell good, but wither and die no matter how much care is put into them?

Are dreams made of bubbles, that float above your head as you stretch your arms high to reach for them, only to have them pop at the faintest touch?

Are any dreams made of diamonds, that glisten and glitter and, despite some flaws, are considered priceless by many? Dreams that can never be broken; that will live forever?

Are there dreams that are like wild stallions, that run free in the wide-open lands of your mind, that can be caught and tamed but still hold that spirit?

Are there any dreams that rest on the tails of shooting stars, go up with the smoke of blown-out birthday candles, are made at 11:11, or fly on coins into wishing wells? Dreams that are caught by the invisible hand that holds the power to make them come true?

What are dreams made of?

Are they made of unicorns, pixy dust, fairies, and other such silly things?

Or are they made of water and air and earth, the essence of our very being, which we could never live without, even if we tried?

What are dreams made of?

Ars Poetica

I wrote this after taking a Creative Writing: Fiction course sophomore year of college. To this day, it still stands as my greatest testament to why I write fiction.

They say that one of the reasons there must be a God is because it is impossible to create something from nothing. If that is the case then people who write fiction must be part-God because they hold the ability to take a blank piece of paper and create whole other worlds, unique people and imaginative settings. These elements do not actually exist, but in people’s mind they will. They will see them; they will hear them; they will cry for their losses and cheer for their victories. 

In addition, you hold the future in your hands. In your fiction, your character could die painfully or live to see another day. They could be there to save the one they love or fail at the last minute. It is your world and within it you control everything. Perhaps this is why so many people enjoy writing fiction; because they can feel like God. 

For me, while I enjoy the God-aspect to writing, I also marvel at how a piece of paper covered with letters, words and punctuation marks can actually not be a piece of paper at; it is another dimension, someone’s life, people’s worst fears. You are not holding paper but life, death, bitter cold, mountain tops and ocean depths. You are holding leaves scattering in the cool breeze, hugs and kisses, or the raging inferno of an erupting volcano. The fact that all of this is not literally real, but is just as real to you as the sun outside or your own fingers, is amazing, beautiful, and the whole reason I write. 

Fiction is about taking a reader to places they may (or may not) want to go, to experience new things, to think or to simply escape. Maybe it is a control thing, or a God thing, or maybe it’s just a chance to experience more than what life has already lain out before you. Whatever it may be, writing fiction is one of the most liberating and exhilarating experiences someone can have in their lifetime.