LT Saloon

September Edition 2009

As we awake from summer's slumber...

Always a Challenge

Written by Millie Jenny C.

Another of life’s blips
…on the radar screen of life.
Adjusting to the changes, in a daily routine
That had perhaps become too routine.
Of course, answering the phone is also a routine
But a sense of accomplishment can felt
When I feel I can help someone dial
one… less… number.
Not so much so when I have to tell someone
Something they don’t want to hear.

5/3/2002
______________________________________________
©Copyright 2002
Millie Jenny C
all rights reserved

Another City, Quite My Own

Written by Sennebec

I don’t think it was just my imagination. Everything had gotten progressively weirder as summer dawdled on. Red tide was worse than ever, blight was wiping out potatoes, tomatoes and blueberries, perpetual rain which usually segued into dry hot weather in July had lingered until the first of August and the tourists were so discouraged, the state had set up a crisis hotline to keep them from killing locals when they jumped from their hotel room windows.

The heat and humidity had certainly done a number on me. I had barely enough energy to drive home after closing the library, open my mail and maybe cook something. More often than not, I’d slap together cold leftovers and eat on the deck while making a futile effort to fend off mosquitoes who were now approaching hummingbirds in size. Everyone expressed the same opinion around Simonton; it was too hot to stay outside, too humid to do more than sweat gracefully and by Godfrey, if it’s like this next summer, I’m moving out west, wildfires be damned.

It was after midnight on August 16th, my late father’s birthday. The double thunder shower which had made watching tv or answering email impossible as night fell, hadn’t done anything to relieve the oppressive dampness which seemed so heavy I could wave my hand and imagine miniature waves rolling through the living room air and crashing halfway up the wall. Even reading Kate Flora’s new mystery hadn’t been able to hold my attention for very long. I saved my place and turned off the light.

Sweat-soaked sheets and persistent heat lightning made falling asleep a chore, but sometime around midnight I drifted into an uneasy slumber.

Something was very wrong. I untangled the damp sheet which had a stranglehold on my left leg and got out of bed. As I headed toward the bathroom, I glanced out the living room window at the skyline, such as there, was of downtown Simonton. The sky was briefly illuminated by another burst of heat lightning and I forgot all about my reason for getting out of bed. Several buildings were missing. I waited until another flash verified my initial impression. Sure enough, the Damarisk Bank wasn’t there, nor was the Baptist Church. I fought an urge to run outside and scream and headed for the bathroom. An empty bladder and several handfuls of cold water helped put things in perspective. It had to be a dream or a trick of the brief flashes of light. Still, I could be on South Main in ten minutes if I walked quickly.

As I waited for my eyes to adjust, I realized there was something odd about the streetlight next to my mailbox. Instead of one of those mercury vapor lights at the top, the pole seemed to morph from dull steel to a transparency starting about ten feet off the ground. I let my eyes follow this oddity and had to look twice. The pole evaporated about a foot below where I expected the light to be. No wonder it was darker than usual.

I made my way down Dwinal St., cursing as I tripped over half a garbage can. It looked like someone had sawed it neatly down the middle, but the missing piece was nowhere to be seen. I slowed my pace as I realized there were a lot more odd things than I hadn’t noticed. More than half the street lights were in some state of unfinished and several trees were in similar straights, including one where ten feet of its trunk seemed to have gone elsewhere.

My mind was having enough trouble dealing with the tree when a dog ran by, barking happily. I turned to watch as it disappeared into the darkness, realizing that its hind quarters were gone. That just about did it for my poor overworked brain. How half a dog could function, let alone run by me that fast was way more than it wanted to process.

I took off in the other direction, hearing a low pained keening sound as I banged and bounced off myriad objects in the darkness.

By the time I stumbled around the corner on South Main, I was too hoarse to make any more sounds and I was a mess from continual banging into objects, many of which were unfinished caricatures of things I took for granted during daylight hours. Some of the street lights were functional, but that was a mixed blessing as the light made it more apparent that I wasn’t in Kansas or any other place that I could remember. Hoping it was a dream, I bit my left hand as hard as I dared, thinking the pain might bring be back to reality.

“Most everyone tries that, but it doesn’t work.”

I nearly severed a tendon as I whipped around to see who had spoken. The sad looking fellow was sitting on an unfinished bench under a small tree. I gave him a quick once over, but he seemed to be all there, at least in the physical sense. He waved a hand, inviting me to join him on the bench.

“Bet you’re feeling a might perplexed.”

“More than a bit, am I dreaming?”

”Maybe, it depends on how you define the word. If you mean in the traditional sense, where you drift off, imagine pretty colored scenes and wake up not remembering a whole lot, then the answer is no. If you can relate to the concept of getting a message delivered in a subtle, but vivid way, then the answer is probably yes.”

His cryptic response should have unnerved me, but after some of the things I’d seen since leaving my house, I didn’t seem to have much surprise left. I nodded, waiting for him to continue.

“I envy you. You’ll be out of here shortly, while I’m stuck here for who knows how long. You see, unlike my brother Herm, I didn’t get the message when it was given to me. I just attributed it to something which accompanied bad oysters in a cheap tavern and went on my merry way, an exceedingly unwise choice in hindsight.” He waved a hand as if including everything around us, “I’ve been the caretaker for over 150 years and I’m still waiting for someone whose arrogance exceeds their common sense so I can retire.”

I looked around, seeing everything in a slightly different light. I had a strong suspicion I understood exactly what was behind his words. I stood awkwardly and looked down at him, an aging nondescript man wearing a shabby frock coat and spectacles.

“Thanks, I think I get it. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Tom, Tom Melville.” He smiled sadly as I turned and started home.

When I awoke late the following morning, everything outside my window looked reassuringly normal. No unfinished trees, no half dogs, no severed trash receptacles, no missing buildings. I started a pot of coffee and hurried to my book case. I had to blow dust off my copy of The Encyclopedia of Imaginary Places. Heaven knows when I consulted it last, I thought as I searched for the entry I faintly remembered.

Halfway down page 77 I found what I was looking for; “The City of Unfinished Stories-a place originally created by Hieronymus Bosch and represented in one of his early paintings. It is said to be where all stories abandoned by authors end up. Bosch’s painting features incomplete buildings, people and natural features.”

That was all the motivation I needed. As soon as the coffee was ready, I grabbed a cup and opened the nearly forgotten file I had once loftily called great works. Four unfinished stories, long ago promised to different editors stared accusingly at me. With luck, I’d remember where each was headed when my confidence and motivation went south more than a year ago.

I opened the oldest one, and I swear I saw Tom Melville smiling approvingly as I started writing.
_____________________________________________
©Copyright 2009
Sennebec
all rights reserved

Inspiration…strikes

Photo courtesy of met.utah.edu

Roads Without Sidewalks

Image courtesy of jalopyjournal.com

Written by Jenn Weinshenker

Soggy heaps of garbage shrugged along
Mowed lawns and swept driveways
Strikers refused to pick them up this week

A two toned, rust and white, El Camino turned the corner
An axle with a tire on either end
Strapped with bunjee chords, fit snug across the roof
Remnants of its road worthy past were tucked in the rubber lining
Where the windshield used to be

The driver grinned as he drove past
He must have said something funny
I couldn’t make out the words but smiled and waved anyway
It was the neighborly think to do

Down at the park
Crickets competed with the interstate, for reigning repetitious screech
Geese milled around in their autumn best
And an empty water bottle rolled under a picnic table
The fields were empty
Classes were back in session
There were no games today

A skinny dog barreled down a driveway
Bah-rah-rah-rah
An aptitude that took nearly forty years to achieve
We stood our ground
And eventually acknowledged
The road did not belong to any of us
I was free to go

Rounding the bend
I could see the screen door
My long haired Akita, Bear, jumped to his feet
The white plume of his gossamer tail
Haled
Downright exaltation
___________________________________________________
©Copyright 2009
Jenn Weinshenker
all rights reserved

River

Written by Ken Carman

I can only say what being dead is like for me. I cannot speak for the others.

What follows is what I sense, what I saw: more accurately “didn’t see.” In the world that was, there is no more “me.” The physical me turned ash within days. Yet the “spirit,” if you wish, was stuck here where I died. No “looking down upon myself from the ceiling.” Maybe that’s what happened to others.

Being dead is, at first, like taking a test in school and suddenly finding out you put so many answers in the wrong places. You thought about erasing all your wrong choices as you die but you’ve run out of time.

I had been simply watching TV with my wife when I felt the hammer hit my chest. It was “sledge” in nature. I couldn’t speak; just sit there in more pain than I had ever felt before. Then… nothing except watching the scene… detached.

I saw them come and get my body: my wife couldn’t pick me up… through she tried, hoping to get me to a emergency room. I don’t fault her, besides: I was dead already. She just didn’t know it.

My body was gone, but I was still in the chair. I was spared the indignity of my wife sitting on me, more accurately “in” me. But the cats and the dogs didn’t mind and she didn’t have the heart to chase them off. Eventually she got rid of that chair: it reminded her of the night I died. Only I was still there, as if there was a chair. Same position.

Then the clothes. Cleaning out the house: her life, of all that had been me, every pair of pants, every shirt, underwear, socks; went to Goodwill.

By now I thought I had figured out that I was probably a ghost. A naked ghost, because with every affect of my life that disappeared part of me disappeared. Shampoo in the shower ran out I no longer had hair. My guitars and cars: my hands and feet. When she tossed my glasses I couldn’t see. I’m guessing when she gave away my last CD my ears went.

Not that I regret that. There’s so much you don’t want to hear or see that happens after you’re dead. I heard far too much before the CDs were given away, or my glasses ended up in a landfill. Your former life is shredded and torn into tears and forgetfulness. I’m not sure which is worse for the dead: seeing and hearing what’s happening, or knowing something’s happening but you’ve just lost your hearing, the ability to see. At least the living can forget. When you’re dead you’re reminded over and over: you’re no longer there. A kind of deep, stabbing emotional pain no narcotic could ever reduce.

Being erased one piece at a time is Hell. I thought that’s where I had been sent.

But now… a gentle lifting.

Like a river.

Somehow I sense I am not alone.

We flow.

We seep.

We fill in what was, what is and what will be with whatever we are now. We create time. We are time. We are the creative spark the urges you to write. The thrill of your first love. That “ah ha” moment of realization.

So… I can only say what being dead is for me. I cannot speak for the others.

They are all around me, I don’t know who they are. They flow through me; around me. We are separate. We are one. I think I know who some of them may be; more accurately who they were… but I can only guess.

We’re going somewhere.

Where?

I don’t know.

But there’s no small comfort in the fact that we go there… together.

Every rain drop adds
Every raindrop adds
To the river
To the river
Every river turns
Every river turns
To the sea
To the sea
Seawaves wash the shore
And become raindrops once more

___________________________________________

-Song lyrics from Ken Carman’s River Raindrop Sea

©Copyright 1996
Loose Moose Music/bmi
all rights reserved

Story…

©Copyright 2009
Ken Carman
all rights reserved

Picture courtesy of pbase.com

———Lutin Muse———

The LT Saloon Lutin Muse Literary Journal, September 2009