Stupid Butterflies
by Vickie Wippel
You stagger down the street. You see a butterfly, flitting from flower to stupid flower. You asked for a sign and here one is, only five minutes later. She was always punctual, wasn’t she? But a butterfly? Come on. You didn’t expect the sign to be so damn obvious- might as well be a construction cone. She hated cliches, and so do you. It’s not personal, it’s genetics.
You just had coffee together this morning. How can she already be gone, you ask yourself. Of course, she was already dead before the morning coffee was poured. This you knew, even though you’re the one who poured it—black for her, cream for you. Your sisters took theirs with sugar and cream. Her sister took hers black. No woman in your family did anything before coffee, kinda like Garfield, that chunky cartoon cat. Your mother would never send an orange cat as a sign, however. She hated cats, hand-drawn or otherwise.
Time did not revolve around the clock during those days, that week or so when she went from being present to something in your past. Time was marked by coffee cups in the morning and wine cups instead of dinner- the same cup, just rinsed out as day turned to dusk. She dies in the middle of the night, which you think peculiar because she loved having the floor. Maybe dying is like going to the bathroom; you need some privacy to make things go. Your older sister and you hold vigil in her room that last night, listening for the death rattle with the anticipation of who the hell knows what, not Christmas; you haven’t slept in days—too tired for words. You wonder if her lungs will sound like jangling keys or salt in a shaker. There are a lot of ways to rattle, and the hospice nurses don’t have time to answer every question.
You wake up first to find your mother gone, but it’s your older sister, the chef who—being more at ease with carnal matters (blood and guts)— confirms the death clinically, so to speak. She picks up your mother’s hand, already white as a ghost, holding it up high in the dark, as if she will clip it to a clothesline, before letting it go. The arm slaps against the medical bed with a thud. Gravity proves what your soul already knows: she is gone.
Everyone, your sisters and you, your aunt, knows you need to call the funeral home to claim the body. You feel overcome, gulping, gasping for air, knowing you will never see your mother, who bore you, raised you, fueled your love of Barbara Kingsolver and tag sales, dealt with the bullshit of your teenage years, sent you money in college that she didn’t have, taught you every fucking thing you need to know about being a good human. Other cultures cleanse and wrap the body in oils and linens; they wash, and sing, and pray. The women of your family prepare, too. You pour your mother her last cup of coffee and you all settle back in your chairs a final time as the grave digger rattles down your mother’s street to retrieve her. Paramedics in a medical transport van, really, but tell that to your rattled heart.
As they say, you wish there were time for a second cup. You can’t be there when they take her away. You would want to cling when they would want you to let go. So, you run out the door, leaving your own coffee to grow cold as a corpse, and head down the street before the gurney squeaks and bumps up the stairs to her apartment door. And there you are, staggering, sobbing, breathless, when you stop to see that quiet butterfly. You think Shit, Mom, couldn’t you have picked something else? I’m 37 years old— the butterfly days, the unicorn days, are over. And you were neither light, nor flighty. The butterfly kisses a tiny yellow flower and flies away.
You don’t know yet that every stupid, stunning, unrattled, flitting butterfly will remind you of the magic of her. And you don’t know, not yet, that one day you will smile when you see her in a piping cup of coffee. Just the coffee. Not the steam. That would be too trite.
—
Read more by Vickie Wippel, voted “Long Beach’s Greatest Storyteller of 2021 and 2023″ and 2014 Harriet Williams Emerging Writer – Long Beach Literary Women’s Festival of Authors”:
VickieWippel.com
Still Life – available at Amazon.com
Gamey
by Liz Dosta
I wasn’t a violent child. I didn’t hit my older brother unless provoked. I didn’t pull the wings from flies just to watch them turn in circles. I didn’t freeze bees to see if I could wake them from their sub-zero comas, didn’t set ants on fire using a magnifying glass to direct the sun’s heat to a microscopic spot in the grass, where they dug their tunnels. I didn’t even burn grass just to see a blade go up in smoke. But, the first time I shot a gun, I liked it. I liked the cold weight of it heavy in my small hands as I took aim. I was ten. It was summer. I was wearing a yellow t-shirt with an image of a smiling duck on it. My mother had fashioned my hair into two pigtails that curled at the ends. My jeans rose high above my belly button. My shoes were purple. My eyes were virtually closed when I took my first shot.
I missed. I aimed, and missed, again. I missed each of the seven soda cans that sat perched before me. After, my hands vibrated like little engines cooling. The soles of my feet, flat against the dirt, seemed to float up. I could smell honeysuckle in the air.
“Well,” my father said, raising his bushy eyebrows, “better luck next time,” and clicked his tongue. My father had a red face. He was a mangled man.
Back home, after target practice, it was raining ashes across our lawn, and on our driveway. A fire was raging in the valley. Homes were going up in smoke. My mother tried to sweep the ashes up, but when the bristles pressed against the ash, a streak of black would appear. My brother and I got down on our hands and knees and tried to blow the ashes away, but that just sent them into a dizzying whirl. My mother took out the hose and watered the pavement. My brother and I stomped around excitedly, until we were called in. It was dark. It was dinner-time. My cheeks were hot from playing games. That first drink of milk was heaven.
By fall, my father had killed his first deer. I watched him drag the knife across its throat as he chuckled to himself. The deer’s large black eyes glistened as if still alive. I watched them turn a little, in their sockets, as the blade tore through its rough skin. The intestines, once so close and coiled together, were spread out and limp on the floor. I felt my wrists throbbing. I began to dance around the deer. I itched and scratched at my wrists as I danced around and around the dead body, which was hog-tied to the rafters. When I pressed my thumb into the flesh around my wrist, I could feel my heart beating steadily, kicking like a small hoof against my thumb.
Read more by Liz Dosta in her upcoming book of poetry,
_Trigger and the Infinite Pull_
http://pankmagazine.com/piece/five-poems-21/
DOUBLE-DECKER
by Chad Greene
The way I remember it, we held hands for the first time on the double-decker.
My hand had held a deep-fried hotdish on a stick right before riding the double-decker Ferris wheel. After all, we were at the Minnesota State Fair, and what could have been more Minnesotan than that – three Swedish meatballs on a stick, with tater tots between them, all breaded and deep-fried?
“The hamburger-and-cream-of-mushroom-soup dipping sauce?” Annie suggested as we strolled toward the midway.
“Or that the banner above the window where we ordered had ‘Uff Da!’ printed on it?” I asked.
“Twice!” she laughed. “Or that the stand was called ‘Ole and Lena’s’?”
“‘Ole and Lena’!” I exclaimed. “Like all those old jokes my Norwegian nana used to tell! Did you ever hear the one about when Ole and Lena got married? On their honeymoon, they had driven almost all the way to Minneapolis when Ole put his hand on Lena’s knee. Giggling, Lena said—”
“‘Ya can go a little farder now if ya want to, Ole,’” Annie interjected in her best Yooper accent.
“So Ole drove to Duluth,” I finished.
Theway I remember it, that was the first time we laughed together – a very new couple sharing a very old joke about a husband and a wife who almost always misunderstood one another.
The way I remember it, we compromised for the first time on the double-decker.
My hand still held half a deep-fried hotdish on a stick. As I started my standard tirade against roller coasters, I punctuated my most important points with thrusts of it.
“Artificial thrills,” I sneered, “for folks who are—”
“Not afraid of heights?” Annie interrupted.
“—bored by their lives,” I insisted. “Admittedly, I’m—”
“Afraid of heights?”
“Of course not,” I scoffed.
“So, you refuse to ride a roller coaster because—”
“—I have no need for artificial thrills because I’m not bored by my life.”
“But, because you’re – of course – not afraid of heights, you’d have no problem riding, say…,” Annie’s eyes scanned the rides that towered over the rest of the amusements on the midway, “…the double-decker Ferris wheel?”
“Of course not,” I bluffed.
“Well, let’s get in line!” She trotted toward what looked like a rickety Erector Set. Two wheels with eight passenger gondolas each were connected by thin – too thin! – metal beams with holes in them. An axle threaded through the holes in the middles of the beams, meaning that it was not only the eight gondolas on each of the wheels that would rotate from bottom to top, but also the two wheels themselves.
As I stared at the legs dangling out of the gondolas on the higher of the two wheels, I gulped. Then I threw the remaining half of my deep-fried hotdish on a stick into the trashcan next to the head of the line.
“Not feeling a little … queasy, are you?” Annie asked. “Our feet are still on the ground.”
The way I remember it, I managed to scrape up an appropriate pun. “It’s just that…,” I stammered as I stepped past the carny holding the gondola door open for us and scooted onto the bench beside her. “It’s just that, I want to concentrate my attentions on only one ‘hot dish’ at the moment.”
“Aww,” she said.
Just then, the carny slammed the door and pulled the lever. With a jolt, we creaked skyward.
“Ahh,” I said.
The way I remember it, I mostly stared down at my knuckles, which were white from my compulsive clutching of the safety bar. I felt like our ascent could only last a little longer; I was – yes – afraid we were about to start our descent.
“So….”
“So….”
“So…you’re Norwegian?” Annie asked. “I would’ve guessed German, with a name like—”
“Carl Braun? You would’ve guessed right – at least, mostly.” After a slow start, my answer began to pick up speed – as I was sure we were about to do. “My nana, my great-grandmother, was Norwegian. And her husband, my great-grandfather, was Italian. So, that makes me about one-eighth of each. But I’m about three-quarters German—”
At the moment, I felt something strange. Although, as I had dreaded, our gondola started its descent, our wheel simultaneously started its ascent. I was so disoriented that, despite my – yes – fear of heights, I was about to look up from my knuckles.
But then I saw Annie lift her left hand off the safety bar and place it on top of my right hand.
The way I remember it, I momentarily lamented that my hand had held a deep-fried hotdish on a stick right before riding the double-decker because it was slightly greasy. But then I let go of the safety bar, and I rotated my wrist, so I could hold her hand.
Now, I wonder if she had misunderstood me – if my inability to hide my fear of heights had seemed to her instead to be the height of emotional openness in an Upper Midwestern man?
But, then, I was sure I did not misunderstand her when she informed me, in her best Yooper accent, “Ya can go a little farder now if ya want to, Carl.”
Read more by Chad Greene in:
“Divine” litro.co.uk – “Oasis” inlandiajournal.org
The One Thing I Never Told Her
by Timothy Perez
The first time my wife gave birth I almost lost my cookies.
***
I looked down between the sheet, between legs splashed with orange Betadine and watched the doctor pull things out of her the way a magician pulls rows and rows of colored scarves out of a wide brimmed hat. I witnessed the doctor pull and pull and pull black sopping fleshy tissue from her; I witnessed her blood flowing into a blue pan, the kind mechanics use when changing a car’s oil; I watched as it filled to the brim.
I watched as the doctor dipped two fingers in a white tub of antiseptic lubricant and began stretching the blood-drenched womb of my wife; it was as if he were putting a rim on a tire. He pulled and stretched her like pizza dough. I was expecting the doctor at any moment to fling my wife into the air and my son come tumbling from her like a yo-yo, but then he did something unexpected and took out a pair of surgical scissors. They shined greedily in the bright light. I looked at the doctor and he winked at me. A five gallon white plastic bucket with a biohazard sign half filled with blood and bits of red meaty tissue. I turned to my wife said, You need to push. Now.
Too late. I heard the first meaty snip. Okay mom, push on three. One . . . two . . . three. My wife’s face puckered, and then a breath, and then another meaty snip. Sally, I whispered, he’s cutting you now, you need to push him out. Let’s go.
Okay mom, one more time. One . . . two . . . three. My wife’s face turned inward, the nurses oohhing and aahhing in unison like backup singers. Then, another meaty snip. That’s three. I tell my wife, a fourth one is the point of no return Sally.
And before she could be asked to push, my wife pulled herself up and grunted like a wildebeest And then the doctor’s final tug and in his hands he held a bundle of bloody phlegm screaming and wriggling and the placenta dropped and there was a slight splash and I imagined if it had been an Olympic diver it would’ve been considered perfect. And I choked back whatever was coming up and the doctor mistook my nausea for emotion said, birth is a beautiful thing.
My son: an otherworldly beached jellyfish, a fresh bruise, a chemical spill floating in a gutter, pale yellows, and dark purples, dashes of crimson, peppered with pink flesh, and then he began to unfurl like the petals of an Iris.
I don’t cry much, when I do it’s usually by myself in the dark or in a corner if others are around. And when my first born showed up I had a knob in my throat that dissolved like a cube of sugar when I saw the buffoon huddled in the nurse’s palms. I dried them up by staring at the halogen lamp, then at the doctor sewing up my wife commenting on the bucket of blood he had collected.
This is nothing, he said handing me the scissors the same one used to snip her wider with and it was then that I looked at my son for the first time and the doctor motioned to the umbilical cord the color of tripe. I took in a deep breath, bit my lip and cut. It had the texture of a garden hose, blood spurt from the kinky pale tube dousing the doctor’s blue gloved hand. My son yawned, sniffed the air, clambered between his mother’s breasts and began to feed.
And I stood there knowing I cut him from her staring into eyes that couldn’t yet see and the doctor looked up from the blue oil pan filled with my wife’s blood and the pan wobbled slightly and blood sloshed over and onto the floor in a pattern that would soon be swirled by a janitor’s mop only to be mixed in the detritus of other mothers wombs and the doctor winked at me one last time, said, good job, dad.
Read more by Timothy Perez in:
The Savagery of Bone (Moon Tide Press, 2013)
– acentosreview.com – kuikatl.com – localauthors.com – new york journal of books –
Please Olivia, Let Me Be Your Messiah, Please! – a.k.a. The First Time He Walked On Water
by John Brantingham
originally published in East Jasmine Review
No, he says. No, I don’t understand.
He stands up from the blanket she spread out earlier right on the edge of the lake, and he knocks over the fancy blue bottle of sparkling water. He bought it special because she was staring at one just like it that time in the grocery store.
It makes sense, she says. Her eyes are pleading with him to be reasonable. I’m going to be in college in a couple of weeks. You still have a whole other year in high school, and I want to experience things.
You want someone older?
I guess so. She shrugs and looks out over the lake. He turns to see what could possibly be distracting her, what could be more important than this, but all he can see is the lake, glassy the way lakes get on warm August afternoons.
You want some guy who can do big things, grown-up things.
She shrugs, and there’s nothing to say, so he walks out on the lake, walks on water, didn’t know he could do it before this moment, but that’s when God does these things for people isn’t it, when they’re desperate, when they need help. He can feel his need down inside him. Need is who he is right at this moment.
When he turns around, she’s just shaking her head slowly.
I can do things, he says. He keeps his voice calm even though he wants to scream. He gestures with both his hands at the little waves splashing around his Chuck Taylors. You want a guy who can do things, I’m right here.
Don’t make a scene, she says, and she casts around to see if anyone else is out here with them.
You want me to be your messiah, I’ll do that. He stomps on the water, splashing it up to make his point.
You want me to be your Satan, I can do that too. He sticks his index fingers on his forehead and growls. He tries to chuckle, like it’s all kind of a joke, but the laugh hiccups into a single, little sob that floats out there in the space between them for a moment. They both watch it silently until a breeze kicks up, and it blows away.
It’s not that.
Then what is it. What he wants to say is that he’ll do anything. He’ll be anything. He’ll change his whole personality if she wants him to, that he knows he’s only 16, but he also knows that this feeling — being with her — is the best and most powerful thing he’s ever going to feel, and he’ll do anything she wants just to be near her. He wants to say all of that, but she told him once that she hates when he says needy stuff like that, so he just puts his hands on his hips and waits for her answer.
Instead of saying anything more, she gasps her own sob and runs off towards the parking lot where he knows she’s going to get into her little blue VW and drive out of his life forever.
He should weep, he supposes, but that will come later.
Now, he dips his toe in the water below him and starts to script the same word over and over in big swooping letters. It seems the most beautiful word ever written, and it will in ten years when he names his daughter.
Olivia, he writes. Olivia, Olivia, Olivia.
Read more by John Brantingham in:
The Green of Sunset (Moon Tide Press, 2013)
– culturalweekly.com – servinghousejournal.com – johnbrantingham.blogspot.com –
art of this 