Dedication

(3rd place in my group, 2nd round NYC 250-word fiction challenge, March 2023)

Waiting for the water to boil.

She likes mint leaves mangled, steeped five minutes, three drops of honey, a squeeze of lime. She calls it her “hot mojito.”

I drop a regular King Cole bag in my mug. I was never a tea person before the pandemic, but now I crave tea’s soothing warmth, the bland milky comfort of it. 

The afternoon sun outlines her profile, the curve of her throat. She stares at her laptop, lost in sentence creation, searching for the right words to draw out the awkward laugh, the tears. I put the tea in its place, on the coaster just northeast of her mousepad. 

Inspiration cracks through, and she types soft staccatos. Then she lifts the mug, blows across it, lips like a kiss. My stomach twists. “Heavenly. Thank you, Helen.”

Six months of torture. Would it be worse to never see her? I have wrestled with this.

“The book is finished. So I won’t need you anymore.”

When she isn’t writing, she doesn’t need a tea maker or assistant. I blink. My throat closes.

Her warm hand pulls me around so I am draped over her shoulder. She breathes mint and points at the screen. 

“Read the dedication,” she says and as I do, she pulls my arms tight around her and rests her head on my shoulder.  

“To she who should know better than to get involved with a writer,” it says.

“She does know better,” I murmur, hiding my joy in her neck. 

Glimpsing mom

Nightstand: a Bible,

A cherished hand-written card,

A spare lighter to inhale
the first smoke of the day
face the slop-eyed sweaty man, slurring, stumbling

Tucked behind the Bible, 
The Happy Hooker. Dog eared. 

Inside, a girl smirks at her GI in black and white, one breast bared.  

Testing Time

 Written for Globe Soup. Prompt: Location - tachinomiya

Testing Time

Teleportation is hard. It requires you to send your mind ahead, and then pull your body through along the thin connecting thread of your lingering consciousness. You need to plan your place of arrival (not inside something, or in front of a speeding train, for example) and you need to rely on your body’s desire to remain intact as a unit. It has to do with particle physics and the action of the fermions, ideally while you distract the Pauli exclusion principle with a foot massage and maybe a generous gin and tonic. 

Make it teleportation with time travel, and suddenly you have to bribe a whole other set of natural laws. Add in being drunk, and it’s getting into near impossible level. For one thing, your body’s cohesiveness is not a given. Jim Kunyato arrived at the tiki bar, which was only our second stop, missing the fingertips of his left hand and an exasperated Professor Glauto had to put him back together before sternly sending him home with a D. I don’t think Jim had ever had alcohol before tonight.

You might think a pub crawl is a pretty cool idea for a final exam. That is, you might think this if and only if you have never taken Advanced Teleportation with Professor Glauto. You only get an A+ if you make it to the final stop, which is an obscure underground club in Germany. In the 25 year history of the course, only two students have done it, and one is now the Dean.

Ten years ago, Glauto lost five students into a whirlpool in the Pacific because they overshot the fourth stop. Insurance agents appeared at the school and muttered darkly about risk rate increases. Since then, Glauto has allowed students to work in partners. 

We are at the B- level now, my partner Reika and I, still standing, carefully sipping our Guinness in the Dublin pub and planning our leap to the next stop, in Tokyo. If we manage it, we will be in an early 80s tachinomiya in Tokyo. 

“Bottoms up, everyone!” hollers Glautto, and then he blows the whistle. We are standing next to two unwary Trinity students who benefit from our inability to chug. We dump our drinks into theirs and then teleport within five minutes. I check Reika’s figures, for no good reason. She’s twice the math witch I am – literally, since her fox familiar is a computational whiz. 

We clasp hands and focus, build the spot to land in our consciousnesses, and then send our minds there. So far so good. We start pulling our bodies along. Reika mutters, as she realises that in the blink her consciousness has been gone, one of the students has planted his hand on her breast. Reika’s fox sinks her teeth into the frat boy’s ankle before she makes her way to us, following Reika’s trail. As our eyes snap open, the salarymen around us make space without really looking. 

Professor Glauto  thrusts drinks into our hands as soon as we are substantial. Two young businessmen move aside and gesture an invitation for us to join their table, their skinny ties askew and their eyebrows waggling. 

“Tetsuo Imazawa,” says the first one, pointing at himself. And then, “Hidehiro Fujiwara,” pointing at his companion. Between them is a paper bearing rough sketches. 

Reika introduces herself and says, “Gretchen,” pointing to me. I incline my head. Fujiwara-san asks where we are from. When Reika leans in and whispers “the FUTURE!”  I realise my partner is hammered. 

Imazawa-san apparently understands English because he stares at Reika, agape. Her blue fox has slunk up and around her neck and now looks like a scarf. They chat a few minutes in animated Japanese. I wish I had fared better in Modern Translation. At the next table I see a distracted suited man making notes in code, as in computer code. Assembly to be exact. At least that is a language I recognize. This tachinomiya must be near some video game offices. 

Suddenly, Imazawa starts scribbling wildly with the pencil, looking up at Reika as if for reference. I look across the table and recognize he is drawing her. He is chattering to Fujiwara much too quickly for me to pick up what he is saying but he keeps repeating what sounds like “he-CAN”. 

Reika giggles into her hand and tosses back her drink. The whistle blows and I scramble to get the coordinates established for the St. Petersburg vodka bar that is next. As we start to vanish, the fox mutters to Reika, “Time Gal? Really? You couldn’t resist?”

Reika shrugs. “I always wanted to be in a video game!”

Eurotrash disco decor greets us and we toast our minimum B+ grade.

Cultural Inappropriation

Written to the prompt "Scotch / Scottish / Scotland"

One thing about white privilege that no one talked about, thought Midge, was the way you felt rootless. What was her culture? Greek and Roman culture? Elementary school mythology, history full of galloping white saviours? More like mayonnaise, Sesame Street, boiled peas, Tommy Hunter.

Her parents had been children in the Great Depression and so she saved twist ties, elastics and pop tabs compulsively. But she herself was Gen X, apparently, a late surprise to her mother who had expected menopause. Was her culture set in time? Memories of disco, the Berlin Wall falling, Curt Cobain dying?

Or maybe her legacy was family lore: a baked bean recipe, a few funny catch phrases, an internal belief that her family were storytellers, despite none of them being writers except her one cousin that wrote romance novels. (Which hardly counts, Midge thought uncharitably as she filed another half-novel into the graveyard of writing in her Google Drive.)

None of this compared to the rich culture of her friend Darren, whose Mi’kmaq family had invited her to a Powwow. She had been enchanted with the jingle skirts, awed by the smudging, and irrationally jealous of the mantle of separateness, difference that they wore.

 
She knew that this was in spite of it all; that this culture had persisted like rhizomes, had grown like a callous in reaction to the horrible actions of white people who had come before her. Kidnapping children, ripping them from their homes and telling them they were subhuman; starlight tours, a ghastly tradition of dumping vulnerable men into a frozen landscape to die; thousands of women and children just gone. Murder, cruelty, genocide.

 
Was that the whole of her heritage? Terror, horror, blood, conquest? Better to be rootless.

 
Still, she was curious, so she spit into the vial, mailed it off, crossed her fingers that she wasn’t selling her genetic information to a Marvel supervillain.

Two months later, when she wasn’t expecting it, the results arrived. 53% Scotland/Ireland, she read with wonder. She’d always been told her last name was from French, so this was curious. 35% UK. 7% Finland. 5% southern Europe.

 
Mayonnaise indeed. It didn’t get whiter. Of course, her own fishbelly-pale arms told her this tale, but now it was backed by science. Still… Scotland/Ireland eh?

 
A month later the system was ‘refined’ according to the website. 52% Scottish. 22% Irish. 14% UK.
She impulsively logged onto Amazon and bought a plaid skirt.

 
The next day, she set out on a quest for haggis but even the European grocer told her to wait for Robbie Burns day. January 25 was a bit of a wait. A few days later Midge, enjoying the late autumn warmth in her new skirt, took a new tack. She headed to the liquor store.

SCOTCH! Of course. Scotch whisky?, the pert missus at the liquor store asked.

 
That’s right, lassie, muttered Midge. What kind though?

 
She was aghast at the prices. She’d thought the Scots were supposed to be frugal! Also, she was pretty sure she could not pronounce most of these… Laphroaig? Aberfeldy? Glenfiddich? Cutty Sark seemed easy enough, but would she look like a non-Scot chump buying the cheapest one? And wait, didn’t cutty sark mean lice shirt? (She was pretty sure this was a fact, having gleaned it from an L.M. Montgomery story. Montgomery, after all, was as Scottish a name as they came.)

She settled on Bowmore, which seemed pronounceable and still within a reasonable price (whatever reasonable was).

 
Arriving home, she pulled out what her research told her was the right sort of glass for enjoying one’s Scotch whisky.

She had asked someone on Twitter about mix, but was told curtly that one does not mix proper whisky, so there you go. She dumped in about an inch and then remembered a mystery novel mentioning “two fingers”...she stacked her fingers and eyeballed the glass, then added a bit more. She had no ice, but that was fine, from what she had read.

She picked up the glass and saluted herself, letting the light from her window filter through the amber liquid. “Here’s ta knowin’ yer people!” She didn’t quite feel up to attempting a Gaelic toast yet.

 
She tipped the glass back and swallowed a mouthful. In her mouth was a warm, grainy, cardboard taste and in her throat was a hot fire. She coughed for a minute, and managed to croak “smoooth” like a character in a 1980s sitcom.

 
Maybe it tasted better when you were an embittered cop. Or when you were eating haggis. 

Maybe a deep fried Mars bar would be better.

 
Sighing, eyeballing the full bottle, she sipped another bit out of her glass. It was an investment in her past. She’d learn to like it.

 
Her doorbell rang. Darren stood outside with a bag of Taco Bell.

 
“Hey!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you!”

 
“I had a buy one get one burrito coupon,” he replied. “I thought I’d see if you want one.” He glanced at the whisky bottle.

 
“Drinking alone?” his eyebrows shot up.

 
“Turns out my people are Scottish,” Midge replied airily. “I’m having Scotch.”

“Well, there’s no oatmeal in this burrito,” Darren replied.

 
She pulled the bag over. “I love bean burritos so much. Why can’t I be Mexican? Hey, do you want a drink of this stuff? I don’t think I really like it.”

Darren looked at her soberly. “Are you offering me firewater?”

Her face blanched.

“Nah, I’m just shitting you. I bet the third glass will taste better than the first!” He topped up her glass and poured some in a juice glass he pulled from her cupboard. “Here’s to multiethnic meals!”
Midge clinked with him. “I’ll drink to that!”

comes in like the fog

Tears spill over my cheeks as I stare at the putty-coloured walls. My home, my family, all gone in the fire. My skin will heal, but now I live here, in this dreadful place.

I see something move out of the corner of my eye and hold my breath. They say there’s a cat lives here, but the only people who see it are those about to die. 

An orderly appears and chides me. “Sheila, crying won’t help anyone. Why don’t you go play bingo?”

“Is Alice going to play?”

I peer across the room to see if my roommate’s eyes are open. She’s slept a lot lately. 

“I’ll get your cane.” The orderly leaves. 

Alice’s hand gestures in the air.

“What’re you doing?” I sound shrewish. It happens when you’re old. You lose the nuance of tone. 

Alice murmurs, “Kitty kitty.”

When the orderly returns, I gesture with my chin. “Thinks she sees a cat.”

The orderly’s eyes widen. She turns and stares a moment at Alice whose eyes have closed again. Her lips look blue.

She dashes to the door and yells at the desk, “Get the cart! Call Alice’s family.”

A nurse brings in a cart and the orderly gets me up. 

“Let’s get you to bingo while Joe helps Alice.”

It smells like disinfectant and peas in the hall. As I lean on the rail to walk down the stairs, I hear a purr.

A small grey tabby sits on the step.

I smile. “Kitty.”

------

Microfiction created for an NYC Midnight challenge

Cuthbert's Cafe

Written in response to an NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge, 2021.

In 1963 Halifax, cafe owner Kerry Cuthbert bears witness to the effects of urban renewal in her neighborhood and worries about her business. Meanwhile, her new young cook, Milton has dreams of challenging his social strata.

*****

“Milton!” 

Kerry’s sharp eye caught one of her good cornflower blue soup bowls going out the door in the brown hand of her baker. Through the front window she spied a wagging tail. Was that boy feeding the mangy stray dog out of one of her good soup bowls?

Kerry came out from behind the counter, and pulled on Milton’s shoulder. He was kneeling, letting the dog lap water from the bowl. 

“I’m sorry, missus, he was thirsty. He got abandoned when his people moved. Besides, this bowl was chipped, see?”

Sure enough, there was a large chip out of the rim. Kerry sighed. “How’d it get chipped, Milton? Those bowls aren’t cheap! You got to take care washing them.” 

“It was chipped when it came to the kitchen!” he protested. 

She looked out the door, past him, rubbing her forehead. It was early, the sun barely up and the far side of Gottingen was still mostly in shadow. The recently opened library nearby showed a few lights. Time was, this part of the street would have been a little more lively by now. Storekeepers stopping in for a coffee and chat on their way to work. Some of the office girls indulging in a doughnut. 

Milton headed back into the kitchen, his slim body pulling in on itself as he  passed her. The stray dog snuffled and slunk away up the road. 

She gazed after the mongrel, at the jutting empty space up the street. Maisie’s house had been one of the last to come down, and now her friend lived all the way out in Rockingham. They’d barely finished clearing the debris. City Hall said this was part of a bold plan to modernize Halifax. “Public good.” She harboured quiet doubts. 

“Hello, Kerry!” Edna was waving as she ran across the street from the library. “Can I get a quick cup of tea?” Edna had been ducking over daily for a ‘quick cup of tea’ for the last two weeks. Kerry suspected she was checking on her protege. 

Sure enough, she peeked behind Kerry, and whispered, “How’s he doing?”

“He’s fine, a real help. Thank you again, for recommending him. Mind you, he was giving the old stray dog water out of one of my good bowls, but he’s doing well otherwise. He’s got some fine hustle, Had the place swept and mopped before I got here this morning.”

“Oh, I’m so glad! I know that boy’s going to go places someday, you watch. He told me when he read about Dr. King’s speech last week, how it made his heart glow to hear parts of it. Said he has a dream too. Asked if I thought he could be an alderman someday. Imagine!”

“Well, I guess that’s something. Might be worth a chipped bowl, even.” 

“Morning, Miss Cuthbert,” a fellow in a hardhat called out as he and another man strolled in and slid into a booth. The work crews were a rough lot, but they were keeping her going. She passed them a menu. “I would love a fried egg sandwich with some ham on it, ma’am. And a good, strong cup of coffee.”

The other man piped up, “Just coffee and a doughnut for me, please.” 

She called the order back to Milton, and he remembered to check white or brown bread. He was cheaper than her last cook had been, for sure, and maybe smarter too. 

She brought the workers their coffee and a small jug of cream. 

As she rounded the end of the counter, Milton was preparing a fresh pot of coffee and chatting with Edna. Edna slid him a newspaper. 

“Milton, you’re my kitchen help, you shouldn’t be out here.” Kerry glanced back at the two customers. 

“Sorry, ma’am, I just wanted to help.” The young boy was bashful. He took the newspaper back into the kitchen. Edna looked at her, worry creasing her brow. 

“You haven’t gotten any … comments on having Miton here, have you?” Her eyes slid toward the workers. 

Kerry briskly shook her head, “No, no, there’s been none of that.”

Grabbing a small plate holding a fresh doughnut, she collected the sandwich offered by Milton, and dropped these at the men’s booth. She topped up their coffee, noting, “Fine weather for working, still, I guess.” 

“Sure is, ma’am. I expect it’s going to be noisy hereabouts for a while.” He sounded apologetic. 

“Dusty too, I imagine,” smiled Kerry. She headed back to the counter where Edna was calling out school-related questions to the kitchen window.

Milton passed her out a dozen fresh muffins, and she filled the display case, passing one to Edna, who picked off small bits and put them into her mouth, savouring each. 

“What a cook, am I right? I told you!” She closed her eyes and chewed.

Edna added, “Milton told me the word in Africville is that the city is intent on making his folks move. There’s rumours that’s what the housing those fellas are building is for.” 

One of the men had approached the counter to ask for some catsup. 

“Well, moving more folks back into the neighborhood would be a blessing, that’s for sure,” said Kerry. “Business could pick up a bit more.” She passed the glass bottle to the man.

“Thanks,” he nodded. “I don’t expect the folk moving in those places will be buying meals here. Not a nice respectable place like this.” He nodded.

Kerry saw Milton catch her eye through the window to the kitchen.

At 8:45 am, Milton called out that he was heading to school and would be back at lunchtime. She looked out the door to see the stray dog waiting for him. He pulled some crusts from his pocket, probably collected from a returned plate, and gave them to the mutt. The two marched up Gottingen Street, heads held high, as bulldozers roared to life nearby. The wind blew a few leaves loose. Fall was in the air.

#northend #africville #stephensonreport

This Tide Lifts Us All

It was early enough that the dust still glittered in the last rays of sunset through the windows. We picked out a good table, off to the side, sheltered by the bathroom wall. We could stash our stuff in the corner when the time came for dancing, and not worry that some buzzkill would steal our warm jackets. 

Danny was acting weird about his new pants because he thought they were blue-green and I'd made the mistake of calling them turquoise. I hoped that more people would arrive soon to distract him. So far there was only us and what looked like a table of out-of-towners sharing a pitcher. 

"This is like a goddamn library," Danny hissed. It was preternaturally quiet. When the DJ came bustling in smelling like snow and American cigarettes, it made us start. Soon, though, he had tossed on a Cake song and a few more groups had trickled in. 

Audra had insisted we be sure to get here early. She'd come to our apartment at 3 am on mushrooms, crooning about the golden triadic harmonics of the universe and the melting faces in my ficus and promising to be at the show early was the only thing that got her to leave. I wondered if she had slept at all. 

I was keen to see Delmore Leonard again. He was a well-known local musician and his first solo album had seen me through my last break up. I clung to the upbeat, happy music like a spar. I hadn't heard anything about the new album whose release was being celebrated tonight, except the occasional woo from Audra about all the meditation they had done in the studio recording it, and how hypnotic it was. 

The opening band were a trio of chirpy young women wearing bumble bee stripes and singing songs that poured from them like tea from antique pots, honey-sweet and smooth. The music even lightened Danny's mood and he waved over the server to order a Heineken. The server winked when he dropped the beer and waved away Danney's money, putting him in an even better mood. 

The Bee Girls didn't have really danceable melodies, so we remained at the table, swaying and people watching. When Audra dashed over and splashed down next to Danny, it was like someone had suddenly dropped bourbon in our tea... or maybe acid. 

"I am so glad you're here!!"

"You woke us up in the middle of the night to make sure we were coming." 

She began fiddling with Danny's hair, pushing it against the part. "You are going to be blown away. This album is...." she squeezed her eyes shut in wordless ecstasy. I was mesmerized by her large amber pendant swinging between her breasts. The Bee Girls continued to sugar the air. 

"I've got to go get ready. Come to the front! It will be wild. I promise."

As she zipped across the room to the stage door I helped Danny settle his hair.

"Audra's got the crazy eyes... think she's still shroomed up?" Danny asked.

"Nah, she's got too much energy for straight shrooms I'd say. She is definitely on something!"

The Bee Girls gathered their mandolins and tambourine and floated off the stage, and Delmore began setting up. A clean stage - three mikes, one for him, and one each for Audra and Joscelyn, the other singer. A percussion section. And that was it. Interesting. 

The servers were circulating with large trays of small glasses. Two of these glasses were dropped to us, with a wink for Danny again, who had by now forgotten all about his pants. 

"What's this?" I asked the server, but he was already gone.

Danny shrugged at me. "Communion?" 

We sniffed the glasses. I had once had mead at a D & D festival. It kind of smelled like that. Well, the server had brought it, so it probably wasn't roofied. Everyone else was drinking theirs as we looked around so we toasted and sipped some.

Delmore came to his microphone. "Hey everyone! Enjoy a sweet taste of sunshine, on us!" Everyone held their glasses aloft and we all finished them off. 

"Guess their record company advance is huge," Danny murmured.

We stashed our stuff in the corner and took our spot in front of the stage between Delmore and Audra as the band took their places. 

Ash was doing percussion with them, a surprise. He caught my eye and smiled, which made me smile. I hadn't seen him in a few weeks and the last time... the memory of his warm breath on my neck caught me by surprise and I felt my pulse all over my body.  

Then the music started. Audra and Joscelyn, both with their long blonde hair flowing down, stood, arms out and began a breathy harmonizing. Delmore, his dark goatee startling under his high cheekbones, joined in with the sounds they were making and then began singing. I realized he was looping the harmonies, so they layered and built. 

One time my friend Heather and I had been body surfing at Lawrencetown Beach, and suddenly the tide had surged deep under us and dragged us both by the feet out toward the open ocean. It took long moments of hard struggle to bring us back to land, and all the while, the ocean pulled and pulled. 

The sound was like that. My conscious mind found its footing gone. I was being pulled into an ocean of mutual awareness, and I wasn't strong enough to stand against the tide. As the music swelled, the lights seemed to change, and move. I was looking at the server behind the bar, who winked at me. I was looking at Joscelyn, somehow from right in front of her, and then I was looking at myself from stage. I was caught in a looping spiral that sent my awareness from person to person in the place. I was in love with a blonde man behind me, and then I was thinking about my sick grandmother; I was zoning on how cool my hand felt entwined with Sarah's, then feeling Mohinder's strong chest behind me, then aware of all of this at once, and looking at the crowd through Delmore's eyes, feeling my breath forming this mystical chord with the other singers. 

What was in that drink?

The sensation merged into oneness, and for almost a full minute, I was everyone and everyone was me and we were one, and breathing in unison, inhaling joy and sending love into the universe. And then the harmonies ebbed and I found myself retreating, reaching out still for the connection, but then alone, bewildered, in my own head. I was drenched. I clutched Danny's hand, and the hand of the man on my right. None of us let go. In the moment of silence following the song, Audra and Joscelyn clutched their matching pendants, moved to join arms with Delmore. Then Delmore said, 

"This harmonic joining is new, and this is how we can move forward together. My friends, my loves, my others... this is how we were meant to live."

I couldn't imagine anything more comforting than his voice.

"We will dance this evening, and join again before we part. But now that you know this is how it can be, I'm asking you to join with us. Follow us. Let us move across this earth and spread this joy."

Then he started playing another song, and I started dancing. Everyone was dancing, even the servers. Even the bouncers. A small part of my brain thought, the drink will wear off and this will be the best dream-high you have ever had, so be sure to remember it. Another part of my brain thought, you are forever changed. 

After two hours of dancing, hugging strangers, sharing water and just vibing at a continuously joyous level, the band moved into the layered harmonics again, and again, we shared each others' consciousness. This time, I could recognize more of the darker parts of people's minds. The depression, the self-doubt, the anger, that lay under the open, loving area we shared. As we joined, each of us began weaving healing, or maybe planting seeds is the right metaphor. We worked to pull these darker thoughts up, into conscious balance. It is a weird thing to explain in words. We knew that the harmonics worked by mixing different notes, and it was like that, in psychological terms - the more we pulled the dark parts in and blended them as well, the deeper and richer the joining.

As the last notes ended, we all instinctively came together into a huddle in the middle of the dance floor, touching as many others as we could. When Delmore invited us to join him on the buses he had waiting outside no one hesitated. 

This convoy will now spread out. Each of us will learn to brew the opening mead. Those of us who can sing will learn the joyous harmonics. Some of us will make clothes, some of us will make food. Some of us will drive. I have been charged with finding more amber crystals. We each have a role to play in bringing this world home. When we get to your town, be sure to get to the show early. 

This tide lifts us all.