Clean Shorts for Adults

Mermaid

Heavy gusts of wind rest for a moment and rustling leaves settle slowly to the ground as I watch painfully out the window.

“Your child has a severe birth-defect,” they'd said.  “It may not survive childbirth, and if it does it will live a very short life.  First the lungs and heart and then the rest of its organs would all shut down.”

The wind blasts the leaves again, making them dance across the grass, down the sidewalk, into the street.  I cringe as a car approaches, as if the leaves are little children under my protection, coming dangerously close to being crushed under the weight of the tires.  I hold my breath as some of them fall over and some rush between the tires and then dance in the street again as if to say ‘you missed me, you missed me’.  Such a game we’ve all played in our lives.  Dangerously daring and then taunting when we are victorious in spite of the odds against us.

I hadn’t planned to become pregnant, hadn’t planned to let things go as far as they did.  All I wanted was to find myself.  I thought I could do that through another person.  That lesson was a swift and painful one, realizing what I’m now going through, alone.  I had intended to give the baby up to someone who wanted a child but couldn’t have one of their own.  Now there was no chance of it happening.  Who would want a deformed child?

“We suggest you terminate the pregnancy,” they say.

The words ring through my ears.  It’s an easy out.  I could end it all here and no one would have to know.  I could go on with my life and feel okay with it, knowing the baby probably wouldn’t live anyway.  It would be so easy.  But I can’t do it.  Something inside me won’t let me do it.  No matter what, I must endure.  I was given this situation for a reason, to keep me from giving away my problems, teach me to face my mistakes and their bitter outcomes.  And this one is as bitter as it gets.

“No, I’m keeping the baby.”

I leave the building and wander out into the wind.  I could have called for a ride but the invigorating air seems to whisk away the darkness surrounding me and cleanse my soul with gusts of pure forgiveness for what I have done. 

I wish I could say I have no regrets about keeping it.  So many times I want to turn around and tell them I’ve changed my mind.  But something keeps moving me forward, down the sidewalk and toward my home.  I guess this baby would need a Mom like me; emotionally empty.

This semester in college will finish before the baby is due so I will have plenty of time on my own to prepare for the birth, to care for it and then to bury it when it dies.  I’ll start a new semester when it’s all over.  I may have to skip a term or two but I can catch up quickly, take a heavier load, go to summer school and still graduate with my class in two years. 

I reach the front doorstep as it starts to sprinkle.  If it weren’t so cold and I wasn’t so hungry I would have gone another turn around the block.  I love a nice warm rain.  It always seems to wash away what doesn’t belong.  I wish it would wash away my doubt.

“How was your appointment?”

“It was fine, Ma.”  She doesn’t need to know anything else.

“I made tuna-fish for you,” she calls out loud enough to wake the dead.

“No thanks.  Tuna-fish makes me throw up.”

It isn’t true.  Tuna-fish sounds good at the moment but I don’t want it to be from her.  She reminds me every day what a favor she did in taking me back into her house after I went and got myself “knocked-up”.  The last thing I need to hear is how I owe her the world because she made me a pathetic sandwich which I devoured in seconds.

“Do we still have some chicken noodle soup?”

“Sure!  Do ya’ want me to fix ya’ some?” she asks and then forces a smile.

“I’ll fix it,” I say, pouring the soup into a pan.

“Why does it always have to be like this?  Why’re you so stubborn?” she calls after me as I retreat for the stairs.

I could have waited in the kitchen but it would be an eternity before the nagging would end and I don’t have the patience.  So, the way I deal with it is, I don’t.

Most of our days are spent like this.  Mom arguing and me leaving the room, searching for refuge.  It wasn’t always this way.  She changed after Dad left her.  I’m not saying she became crankier.  She was always pushy for as long as I’ve known her, but it was mostly directed at him.  Now, without someone else to focus her attention on she has me to chew out.  Sometimes I wonder if she hates me.  Thankfully the baby will be here soon.  After it’s gone I can move out and go on my way again.  This time I’ll do things right.

Time slips slowly by.  It seems like every day closer to my due date grows longer and longer.  As if two days become fused into one.  The hours crawls by like one of those slow-moving trains with about two-hundred cars being drug along behind it.  Oh, how I want this to end.

I was rudely awakened by a heavy kick.  It’s one of those kicks where you think they’re coming right out of your stomach because it doesn’t want to wait to come out the natural way.  I think I have big brown and blue bruises all over the inside of my belly.  Sometimes I wonder if the baby hates me, too.

Suddenly they're less like kicks and are more like deep, heavy cramps that feel like my insides are twisting inside out.  I think I might be in labor.

“Mom!”

I hear nothing.

“Mom!” 

Still no answer.

I’m gonna’ have to go down and see if I can find her.  Oh, the stairs are so hard to walk down when the baby is turning inside you and the muscles are tightening up like a knotted rope.

“Mom!  Mom?” 

No one’s there.

The hospital is four blocks away.  I could walk there if I need to.  Crawl there if necessary.  Mom’s car is gone so I have no other choice.  So I slip on my jacket, grab my purse and the little green suitcase by the door, and head out into the world.  I feel silly walking down the sidewalk with my little suitcase, like a kid who’s running away from home. 

Maybe, in a way, I am running away from home again.  I’ll be back after the baby is born but I will be gone again shortly after.  No, I’m only going on a short vacation, not running away like one of those women who go to the hospital to get away from their troubles for a little while, and the doctors give them drugs so they don’t want to take their lives anymore.  But I don’t want to take my life; I just need a break.

Another sharp pain stops me in my tracks.  All of a sudden I feel a pop and then water splashing on the ground beneath me.

“Holy Cow!  Where’d all that come from?”

They don’t tell you that you dump a whole bucketful when you lose your water.  Luckily I wore a dress, but my legs and my dress are wet and cold and I’m made to waddle down the road with a suitcase in one hand and purse in the other and the back of my dress flapping against my legs as I walk.  What a sight.

Now the pains are more frequent and I’m not sure if I can make it the last block.  It feels like the baby is trying to come out now.  Between the rebounding contractions, I waddle even faster toward the emergency room doors, stop and wait for another rush of pain to end, then waddle some more.

I lost so much water two blocks back that my belly shrunk enough so I can see the toes of my shoes when I bend over in pain.  By the time I reach the doors my soaked, white Keds are black with dirt.  They’ll never come clean now.  Finally, a nurse is running to help me.  Finally, I’m being rushed to a delivery room. 

After a quick examination they tell me the baby’s breach and it’s coming right now.  They have to push it back in and turn it so it can come out right. 

“It’s going to be very painful and we don’t have time for a sedative to start working.”

The nurse shoots something into my IV anyway.  As the doctor reaches inside of my body and shoves the baby back, I feel the worst pain I’ve ever known.  And then, I can see in the mirror above my head that he’s backing away, a serious look painted on his face.  I start feeling numb from the top of my head to the tips of each of my painted-red toenails.  The room is spinning and I feel nauseous and then all is black.  But I can still hear their voices.

“It’s almost there, just one more push to get the shoulders.  That’s it, that’s it, oh, yeah.  You have a…”

The room is silent except for a gasp.  I try to open my eyes but it isn’t working.

“Take it to the nursery,” he finally says.

I want to call out to them.  I want to say ‘wait’ but I can’t.  I’m drifting away.  ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ I want to ask.

When my eyes finally obey and open wide enough to look around, I realize I’m no longer in a delivery room but in a hospital room with another woman asleep on the other side of the curtain.  I can tell she’s was asleep because she snores loudly.  I push the button to call the nurse.  I want to see my baby.

“Stay in bed.  Someone will bring it to you when they can,” she says and leaves the room.

Hours pass and they still haven’t brought my baby.  I wonder what is so wrong that they can’t bring it right in?  Is it already dead?  Did I miss the chance to get to know that little life that grew inside of me, that wasn’t a mistake at all but a little person I should be cradling in my arms? 

I close my eyes and start to pray.  I know I don’t deserve any miracles but that baby does.  It didn’t do anything wrong.

I finally decide to push myself up out of bed and stagger to the door.  The room is spinning again but I garner my strength and grab hold of the wall.  Pushing my way down the bustling hallway, I realize I don’t know the way to the nursery.  I have no choice but to ask someone.

“Can you tell me the way to the nursery?” I ask casually, as if I’d done it many times before.

She looks me in the eyes and then down at the floor.  I look down also and see a pool of red between my feet.  I think I’m not real good about seeing blood.

I wake in my room again and the nurse is standing beside me, ‘checking my vitals’ she says.

“I want to see my baby!” I demand.

“When we can bring it in...” 

Mom walks in the room.  I must look like a wounded puppy because she rushes to my side and starts brushing back my hair with her hand.

“What’s the matter, baby?” she asks.

I love it when she calls me that.  I don’t know why.  Funny thing is, it always breaks down my defenses and turns me to mush.  I actually feel like a baby being caressed by my mommy.

“I want to see my baby and they won’t let me see it.” 

I know it’s a shameful thing to do, sending my mother after the poor nurses that way, but it was necessary.  It has become painfully obvious that if I want to see the child I have to bring out the big guns.   
Well, Mom starts to nag and cackle, I don’t think that nurse will ever forgive me for that.  She looks at me as if I had slapped her across the face.  To send my Mom after someone was to slap them across the face.  But, for some reason I don’t feel as guilty as I should.  Within minutes my baby is placed in my arms.

The body is so small and it’s wrapped in a pink blanket.  The label on the bassinet reads:  Baby Girl Kelly.  It’s a girl.  I’m holding my little girl in my arms and looking down into her sweet little face.  She doesn't look like most babies; puffy eyelids and a her upper lip pulled up into an upside-down ‘V’, but I don’t care.  She’s mine and I will care for her as long as I can. 

I count her fingers and then unwrap the blanket to count her toes.  As I lift the fabric from her legs I can see that she has another malformation.  Her legs are fused together from just above the knees down to her heels.  Her feet point outward and curve upward.  It appears as if they will never be able to be used for anything like standing or walking.  So this is why they didn’t want to give her to me; because my daughter looks like a mermaid.

“I don’t care what they think of you.  You’re my little mermaid,” I tell her as I pull her close to my chest and hold her tight.  “You’re my little mermaid.”

Days pass and then weeks.  Ariel was finally able to go home with me.  I thought the name, Ariel, was appropriate for her.  To me she doesn’t look like a mongoloid, as they called her in the hospital.  To me she looks like my baby. 

Her hair is long and has been since the time she was born.  The reddish locks have grown fast and curl in little swoops of autumn’s light.  And when she smiles up at me it warms my tender heart.  Even Mom has changed just having that little ray of glowing light.

When Ariel giggles it echoes through the house like the wind through the trees.  Her laughter is like my favorite lullaby, lightening my soul and softening my heart.  And she smiles as if she knows she has more smiles in her body than time.  And she smiles the most when she’s in the tub.  In just a couple inches of water she flips her merged legs like they’re one big fin and slaps the water until tiny waves cover her. 

It’s my favorite time of the day, bath time.  Mom’s, too.  We laugh and splash the water with her until we’re soaked down the front and there’s little water left in the tub.  Then we all get a fresh change of clothes and relax on the sofa for the rest of the evening. 

After her bath, Ariel tries not to fall asleep.  She keeps opening her eyes to see if I’m still there, then closes them again.  And when they’re too heavy to open anymore she reaches up to my face with her tiny hand.  For some reason I think she’s afraid I’ll leave her.  She has no idea that I wouldn’t leave her side for anything. 

Her lungs and her heart are becoming worse and, as they had told me, the other organs are beginning to shut down as well.  She won’t be able to stay in our home anymore.

I stay in her hospital room at night and cry only when I think she isn’t awake to hear me.  I stay always by her side and hold her tiny hand in mine each night as she falls asleep so she will know that I haven’t gone anywhere. 

It is a bright spring morning and the birds are singing outside the window.  Ariel opens her pale blue eyes and smiles, weakly, up at me.  She labors to breathe with frail lungs and failing heart.  Then she gasps and closes her eyes again as the tears stream down the sides of my face.  
 I know I will never see those beautiful eyes looking up at me again as long as my spirit is still in this world.  I lift her up from her bed, hold her in my arms and rock her gently as I always did early in the morning.  I feel her tiny foot brush against my side and I smile through my tears, feeling her so close to me. 

I realize I’ve had a chance to hold God’s grace in my arms and kiss its tender forehead.  That’s not an opportunity that many people have.  I look upward toward the ceiling and say, ‘thank you’ to my creator.
He had sent me a precious gift in spite of the mistakes I've made in my life.  He allowed me to watch over her for such a short period of time.  But that time wasn’t wasted, it was full of love and hope and plenty of learning.

I've decided not to move away from Mom after all.  After losing Ariel she needed me more than ever.  We spend a lot of time just talking and laughing and remembering the little things Ariel used to do.  In my short time with her, I've finally found myself.  Turns out she didn’t need me as much as I needed her.  I will never forget her.

March Madness

The air was crisp, too crisp to drive with the top down, but I wanted to get away and, oddly enough, the cold wind whipping my hair helps to clear my thoughts.  With so much on my mind, I couldn’t just hang out and pace.  I needed air and this was my opportunity.  Most would say that driving in the wide open countryside of a very unfamiliar country, in the middle of the night, in the middle of March was, well, not a wise thing to do.  Others would call it madness.  I didn’t really think about the fact that I didn’t know where I was going, I just got into my car and drove.

In this area of our planet, in the purplish-gray of the deep dark night, everything seems much different than in the still, clear, light of day.  They say the landscape changes from happy, open, soft green hills to dark mounds of sinister blackness.  The perfect backdrop for an unpleasant story of ghastly events - occurring without notice or warning - and leaving little evidence of its incidence but droplets of blood and pieces of gnashed bone.

With that unnerving thought in mind, I continued on my way and prayed for a recognizable landmark.  Black hills followed by open darkness and more black hills, loomed and waited for something- to begin, to end, to live, to die. 

I closed my eyes, only for a second, and then opened them again, but not wide.  I searched the landscape and waited for something of notice, a house, a barn, a small town with facilities, anything.  At that moment I would have accepted anything.  And then there, on the horizon, a tiny peak so unlike the smooth drumlins I’d come accustomed to, rose above the billowing mounds of land.  I wasn’t sure, but it could have been a house. 

The wind whipped across the low-lying areas and rushed over the sleepy moors.  A spring fog was slipping in, caressing the valleys and the hollows.  Soon the cloud of white would sneak to the road and steal my vision.  I had to get to that quiet house on the hill before the thick fog made traveling impossible.  And then the wind blew again with a great gust of frosty air. 

The night air crept from crisp to frigid in no time at all and I had no coat.  I was so foolish to leave it behind.  What was I thinking?  About Melissa, perhaps.  Why did I act so ridiculously when it came to her?  And making a scene while visiting her family for the first time in this strange land?  Again, what was I thinking?   I would have turned around if I knew from whence I came.

I reached for the atmosphere lever on the panel in my car and slid it to hot, then twisted the knob until the fan blew full-out.  But the blasting heat was as frigid as the night air.  Something was wrong.  Perhaps the heater came unplugged.  There was no way to warm myself now.  I longed for Melissa to be there at that moment, her hot breath on my neck as I drove through the frigid gloom.  I found myself praying there would be someone at the cabin ahead.

And then I felt something significant brush past my leg, close to the ankle.  Being wary of my acutely increased paranoia, I looked down for a moment, hoping it was only my imagination.  In the darkness of the car I could barely see a thing; however, it was clear as crystal in sunlight that nothing was there.  Yet, it felt so real.  My nerves were growing raw. 

Looking up again, I searched the night sky for the house on the hill; was I getting any closer, for heaven’s sake?  I blinked and then squinted fretfully.  My eyes must have been deceiving me for I could no longer see the house.  There was no peaked roof, only scooped valleys, blunt drumlins and swept hills, no houses or barns or small towns to relieve my mind.  Where had it gone? 

I had to stop and put the top up.  It was too cold to think, too cold to drive.  Only protection from the wind would help at this point.  My hands shook uncontrollably as I opened the compartment and pushed the button.  There was no movement, not even the slightest whir of an ungrateful motor.  The top wouldn’t rise.  Climbing up on the seat, I hit it with the heel of my palms and pulled on the edge, trying to dislodge it, failing miserably.  My fingers ached in the stiff air and gusts of unmerciful wind.  On to plan ‘B’.

Popping the hood, I searched for anything out of place, a cord that should be connected, a newly charred or frayed cable, anything that looked as if it refused to work as conditioned or purposed.  Knowing nothing about this new sports car, I decided I couldn’t do a thing about the malfunctioning heater or unmovable top.  It would have to wait until a mechanic could check it out and the soonest that would happen would be morning.  The sky had turned indigo and I couldn’t fool with it any longer.  I had to find a place to stay for the night, out of the cold air and protected from near-freezing temperatures.  I had a feeling the hills and valleys would be unkind to the unsheltered that night.

Once back in the vehicle I turned the key with numb fingers and frosty, white breath flowing from my lips as I breathed in the chilled night air.  The absent click and turning of the solenoid in the starter told me I wouldn’t be close to warmth any time soon.  The whole car seemed to die the minute I turned it off.  Now there was no chance of finding my way to any nearby towns.  I scolded myself silently for turning off the engine.  The only thing left to do was walk.  It was the only way to keep the blood working through my veins and keep me from freezing to death in my uncovered car without the luxury of any type of coat.  I pulled the collar of my shirt up around my neck and headed up the road to an unknown destination. 

I must have walked for more than an hour when I, once again, saw the shape of a small house or cabin with a peaked roof, just off the road to the right of me.  It might have been the one I thought I had seen earlier, off in the distance ahead of me, but it sure was strange how one minute it wasn’t there and the next it was.  I looked around to see if there were any other dwellings in the area.  The surrounding hills and valleys were as an empty, dark casket, waiting for an occupant to fill its padded chamber.  The fog crept like a silent cancer, invading the hills and the road, growing nearer and heavier.

I could have walked further down the road, waited for a more inviting place to take shelter, but the house was nearby and I shouldn’t allow my mind to fool me with thoughts of silly ghost stories from my future in-laws.  Only a fool would continue on and fall prey to a killing frost.  I turned off the road and followed the long narrow drive to the darkened dwelling beyond.

The front porch creaked eerily and the boards cracked hollow under my feet as I edged closer to the door.  Surely there was no one living there, the building being in such a state of disrepair.  I knocked anyway, the sound resonating through my mind and my hands aching as if they had struck a block of ice.  I breathed cool frosty breath on them and rubbed them together like two sticks of wood, hoping to spark a fire within them.  The blood flowed to the tips of the fingers for a moment and then stopped again as I hesitated.  I placed my ear to the door and heard nothing moving, nothing breathing, and trusted there was no one in the house.  I reached for the handle of the door and turned the knob slowly.  The knob turned freely, but the door wouldn’t budge.  I walked around the side to a low-hung window and peered inside.  There appeared to be sticks of furniture and decorations of some sort scattered throughout the room.  I pressed upward against the pane to open it, but the window was locked solidly shut.  Someone lived there and the house was closed up tight as a knot.  I thought of breaking the glass, but decided to try the door again.  It wouldn’t be wise to startle a sleeping family with the sound of shattering shards in the middle of night.  I walked back to the front of the house and tried the doorknob again. 

This time, when the knob turned, the door slipped swiftly open.  A yellowed hand reached out and boney fingers wrapped around my wrist, pulling me in through the gap in the doorway.  I don’t know if I screamed out loud, but I most certainly cried out in fear in my mind.  Soon I was surrounded by darkness even darker than the moonless night outside.

Once inside the building the door slammed shut with finality and I realized I hadn’t, yet, resolved my mid-life crisis.  Within seconds I had recounted the mistakes that required resolution.  Mostly there was Melissa who deserved a sincerely delivered apology.  And now my life could end within minutes.  I needed more time.  Against my better judgment I spun around to see what held my arm so tightly.  It was then my body froze with fright.

I expected to have the breath taken from my very lungs, the life sucked from my middle-aged body.  However, instead of staring into the empty eyes of death, to peer into its blackened core and shriek in horror before losing my soul to darkness, I faced a frail old man with long bent fingers and longer gray hair.

“Ya’ damn fool.  What’re ya’ doin’ out in the moors this time of the year?” asked the old man with wrinkled, brown, paper-bag skin.

“Wh, what?”  I asked, more confused than ever. 

 “Even a fool wouldn’t be out on a night like tonight.”  He repeated.

I stood there with my jaw dropped open.  I must have been in a state of shock from the cold.

“I was just out for a ride when my car broke down…”  I began to say.

“Not man nor beast should be out nowhere on the Ides of March.”  He whispered.

“What’s…?”  I started.

“Sh!” he snapped sharply at me.

            He stood in the middle of the room and looked suspiciously from wall to nook and then window to door.  I watched him move slowly with cat-like stealth.  The old man seemed oddly adept and balanced for his advanced years.  I stood stiff and solid as marble, unsure if this codger was messing with me or if he was truly afraid.  I decided he was frightened to death.  And, whatever the old man feared was scaring me now, too.  I’d heard of the warning; beware the Ides of March.  At the time it was an innocuous recounting of a foreboding whisper. 

Suddenly the wind began to howl and dust pelted the windows like a spray.  The valley fog had crept unnoticed, over hill and down the road, up the narrow drive and surrounded the house.  We stood inside listening to the wind, whistling between cracks in the wood and around the edges of the door, the frame of the window, down the flue of the stove.  Once again the porch boards creaked and snapped with hollowness and I looked at the old man who was staring me deep into my soul.  His hollow eyes nearly froze me in place with deadness and fright.  I closed my eyes tightly and then slowly opened them, looking back at the man who had been standing directly in front of me.  As I did so I realized he was no longer there.  Holding my breath I turned to see where he had gone.  For some reason I didn’t trust the codger and had decided that keeping track of his movements was safest under the circumstances.  If it weren’t so desperately cold outside I would have left long ago.

Eventually I found him, standing by the door, listening to the wooden planks, not saying a word or moving or breathing.  He appeared dead, in a state of lifeless rigidity with his ear to the door.

“Excuse me, but I…”  I’d barely eked out the words before being sharply interrupted.

“Sh!” he snapped again and I couldn’t help but comply.

I felt stupid, standing there, watching the coot moving slowly about the room and then stopping to listen again, at the wall, at the window, at the stove.  Then I heard the sound again.  It was on the porch, but it most assuredly wasn’t the wind.  Footsteps on the porch, someone was outside.

“Someone’s out there!  We have to let them in!”  I shouted and reached for the handle.

The old man had moved like wind, swift and soundlessly toward me.  He grabbed hold of my hand with the force of ten and yanked it from the knob.

“Open that door and both our lives will end this night.  Only our screams will be heard on the wind,” he whispered in my face with spit showering my cheek.

I wiped away the foamy yellow droplets in disgust and turned to the old man.

“Someone’s out there and they need our help,” I whispered shortly back at him.

“That’s what my wife said before she and my daughter opened the door.  Last thing I heard was their voices screaming in the cold dead of night,” he whispered back and my blood froze cold.  “They’ll rip this shack to shreds if they find us here!  So shut up and stay still!” 

I never usually respond to a threat such as that, but this time it stunned me.  I did it; I shut my mouth and stood as still as I could.  I could barely hear my own breathing over the sound of howling wind and the thumping in my chest.  Then I heard another sound and the old man stopped moving around the room.  He stood perfectly still and looked in the direction of the door as something scratched at the threshold and then the floor just inside.  Thin, black fingers, like long dark sticks, reached under the door and felt around at the ground, clumsily reaching and scratching and digging and twisting.  I watched in horror as they etched lines deep into the floor like they were digging into soft flesh, tearing and ripping and cutting.  I looked up and noticed other deep scratches marring the door, scratches from another time, not from this one.  Soon there would be little left of the wooden planks near the door.

The doorknob started to turn and my whole body began to shudder.  I prayed it would not open easily as it had the second time I tried it.  At that moment I realized there was a heavy plank across the door.  It held soundly as the devil stood outside on the porch, pounding loudly on its solid face. 

The old man stood perfectly still, he didn’t move a bit and I knew I should do the same.  But my legs began to cramp and my knees were starting to lock and I felt weak from fright, standing there in the middle of that shack.  The room began to spin as the black clawed fingers started scratching at the window.  The glass began to screech and then shards of the shattered pane fell to the dirty wooden floor.  The wind blew up dirt from every corner of the room as my vision became cloudy.  I closed my eyes tightly; still feeling the room spin like an errant merry-go-round.  Before long I fell to the filthy floor, sick and disoriented.

Curiosity overcame me as I started peered out across the room, knowing that to peer into the eyes of evil meant losing my soul to it forever.  A faint, distant scream on the wind shocked me back to reality and I squeezed them tightly closed once more.  All I could hear next were the screams of a woman and a man and a child, echoing in the night, filling my head as I fell unconscious to the night.

Next thing I knew, I was on the ground with a March sun shining in my face.  I was laid in the dirt with only the bones of a shack left on the ground around me.  The wood was very old and appeared as if it had been rotting in place in the wind and the rain and the frost for decades.  I was alone there in this place, where the shack had existed that night, maybe only for a few moments, to save me from the Ides of March.

When I returned to my car I easily raised the top and the engine started with a gentle purr.  I drove away from that place and never again returned. 

I often think of that eccentric old man and that old wooden shack, usually only on that one time of the year.  And when I do, I pull my shades down low and bolt the door tight and wait for the Ides of March to pass away, like a rabid animal, into the restless night.

Dare

My fingers were shaking like I was just named prom queen.  But it wasn’t excitement I was feeling at that moment.  There’s no way he couldn’t have seen them, glaring in all their glory on top of the registration slip of my car.  Of all the places I had chosen to stash them, why couldn’t it have been under the front seat?

            I smiled up at the officer as I slipped the paper from the glove compartment and swiftly closed it up tight.

            “Not so fast,” he said and I felt my heart skip a beat.  “Open it back up.”

            I feigned ignorance, but knew I couldn’t hold him off forever.  “The glove box you say?  Why, I don’t understand.”

            He looked at me over the top of his glasses, insisting with his eyes that I comply with his request.  My hands still trembling I reached for the latch.  I couldn’t believe I was doing it, I can’t believe what I’d already done.

            “It was a dare…,” I explained, but he wasn’t backing down.

            I knew there were no alternatives, but I searched my thoughts, regardless.  I envisioned my foot pressing down on the accelerator, a befuddled patrolman shrinking in my rear-view mirror.  I could make a great escape the likes of Bonnie and Clyde.  My Pontiac G-8 had to be faster than his Ford whatever.  I could lose him in the canyon on the sharp, winding curves.  That is, until he called for back-up.  Then I could be trapped.  And my mortification would be shared with the throngs who responded to his call.  That wouldn’t work at all.

            But then, I could bribe him; offer to pay him a large sum of money to forget the whole situation ever happened.  Yes, it could cost me hundreds, maybe a thousand, but if it would save me the humiliation…

            I was out of ideas.  I had no choice but open the lid and succumb to the degradation.

            As I lifted the latch and the door fell open, once again my shame was exposed.  I slid shaky fingers over the hot pink, size double “A” cup, and slipped it from its resting place.  I held the bra in the palms of my hands, still loaded with two miniature water balloons, still filled with Vitamin D milk.

            “I didn’t mean to hit your car, officer.  I was aiming for the Mustang you were passing,” I admitted as he held the small, pink cups in his gloved hands.  “It was my friend’s idea,” I added, my cheeks beginning to burn.

            “I’ll be right back,” he said, and pushed the sunglasses back up on the bridge of his nose.

            Then I watched as he sauntered back to his cruiser, my white registration papers in one hand and micro-cup bra in the other.  I waited for what seemed like an eternity, feeling sick to my stomach.  What kind of ticket do you get after assaulting a police car?  Will he give me the maximum fine, or let me off easy?

            It had been 15 minutes and he still hadn’t returned, so I looked in my mirror to see where he had gone.  I squinted my eyes because I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.  The man was on his cell phone talking, and it appeared as if he was laughing.  In fact, it looked as though he was practically falling over himself, guffawing in his car. It couldn’t be.  Was it me who was the butt of his obvious amusement?

            Soon afterward he stepped out of his vehicle, and returned to my driver’s side window, a slight smirk still caught on his lips.  He took a deep breath and then wiped a tear from the rise of his cheek.

            “I’m gonna’ let you go this time,” he said, trying to conceal the glee in his voice.  “You be more careful with these,” he advised, as he handed me my colorful sling-shot.  “You could poke an eye out,” he mumbled and then lost control of his faculties.

             I tossed my loaded bra to the empty back seat and rolled up my window with the officer beside me, bent over and holding his stomach, laughing hysterically.  I drove straight home and stormed up to my apartment with my jaw squared and the inside of my lower lip raw.  I bit it to shreds the whole way home.  Next Saturday I dare her.  I’ll have an entire week to stew and concoct something diabolical.


The Sculpture

He stared at the milky-white body in front of him.  White as the snow outside, but not as frigid.  Cold alabaster shaped her curvy form, not perfect, nearly human.  Lifeless and cold and hard: much like Anna.

Thick, crisp snow fell silently outside the shuttered window.  A frigid chill crept past gaping edges of a dried, wooden frame.  The wind howled a lonely cry outside the single sheet of glass, as if it were a desperate soul, searching for his lover, lost in the deep, dark forest. 

He didn’t have money for heat.  Not enough for shelter or sustenance, not even for life.  The last kitchen chair, last handful of stuffing from a broken sofa, had succumbed to flames in the now-cold, iron stove.

His fingers were numb and blue with cold.  He couldn’t move them as he wanted--to form and carve the blank whiteness into a shape full of life and breath.  Each cut and scrape became a mistake, a scar, blemishes that marred potential perfection.  His weak hands were unable to steady, wild eyes unable to focus.  All that was left in him was desire; to create once again, to love fully, undying and to forgive.  Mostly he longed for death to kiss his pale-blue lips and then to slip off coldly, silently in the deep, dark night. 

Hunger shook his body and enraptured his mind.  Agonizing pain prickled his skin and tingled his scalp with delight.  Sweet agony took away his mind and his soul and his life, to another place, a place that was bright and warm and comfortable with frigidly-warm air brushing the soles of his feet.  

Once again he was lying in the soothing sun with Anna by his side.  A soft breeze ruffled the downy hairs on her back and thighs as tiny beads of sweat pooled in the curve above her hips.  He could only think he had finally reached heaven.  He had joined her, basking in the warmth of the spirit world.  They were inseparable now and for eternity.  There were no ‘till death’ limitations there--on their beach--forever and always.   

Thomas drank in the warmth of the sun through every pour in his body.  He could barely move a muscle.  The sun had soaked away all ambition.  He only wanted to lay there and look at Anna, to never let her go again.

Then she rose to her feet, the shape of her body blocking the sun from his eyes.  All he could see was the form--no color, no contrast--only the outline.  He wanted to see her, her face and her eyes.  Oh, how he missed those sparkling, cold, green eyes.  Then he was blinded by light again.  She went inside. 

Why was she walking away from him again?  Was it her other lover?  Had he followed her there, as well?  First their cabin in the mountains, now their eternal cabana on the beach.  He invaded their lives once more. 

How many times must I kill you, thief in the dark of night?

“She loved you only for your art, your talent, nothing more.”  His smug retort was unbearable. 

No!  She loved me!

“Women love artists, Thomas,” a friend once said “…why wouldn’t she love you?”

Anna wasn’t like the others.  She made him feel what no other could: unsafe, unloved, unimportant.  He gave her his life and his soul; it was all he could afford.  He carved statues and immortalized her like a goddess.  But his love was not enough.  She wanted more: the riches he could not give, a life he did not have.

Thomas followed her up the stairs and into the tiny hut.  It was so hot and he was so cold.  Colored sweat trickled over her body as she lay there, alone.  The curves of her shape reflected brightly in tiny streams of light, cutting harshly through the blinds.  Her arms posed so hard, as an angular piece of marble.  Sharply carved flesh gleamed brilliantly, distinctly.  He could only stare at her near perfection.

Do you love me?

Her body was still and lifeless as the fire in his heart dimmed.  His fingers caressed her throat again.

Do you love me?

Her lips still pursed for a final kiss.  Thomas knew the answer without a returned word spoken.  Never would her heart be his.  Her body, not her heart.

Darkness unfolded inside him.  It chased the brightness, the brilliance that once was his, from every corner of his soul.  He stood there in front of the agonizing reality, naked to his core.  He hated the truth and longed for fantasy, but it would no longer be his.   He had been stripped of the innocence his eyes, once, could only see.  His arms stiffened with anger and fury.  His fingers became brittle from certainty.  His body turned solid as the marble-like form in front of him.  His soul grew cold and frigid with hate and unrequited love in that steaming hot cabana. 

I’ll sculpt her; carve her into someone who cares for me. 

Someone who won’t shrink from me. 

Someone who loves.

He set to work, forming a more delicate face, softening the lines around her cynical mouth and dull eyes.  He rubbed away the mocking stare and dotted a twinkle into her pupils, this time they sparkle for him.  And her body-- so hard and cold and distant-- he rounded and thickened and softened the flesh of her legs and arms.  The selfish touch, reaching only for herself, was moved and turned until reaching for him.  Her hard edges became soft, gentle curves that would surround him with her love. 

Perfection. 

And yet, the sculpture was missing something.  Thomas.  He hesitated for merely a moment and then stepped within the encircling arms.  Her face turned gently toward his, her eyes sparkling for him.  He held her tight and she supported him unlike ever before.  

The perfect love. 

He felt warmth at last and cold at last.  And he felt his heart beat one time and then another and then he felt nothing.

And the glistening white flakes fell silently to the ground as the spirit on the wind continued to cry for his elusive lover.  And the mountain cabin stood silent with no life and no breath from Anna or Thomas, clutched together in love and eternity.  The vacant room, a captured love, sculpted from life and death and what could never be.