Lil,

The prairie’s rot, even in the morning. Everything is either brittle, hollow, or scratch-dry. I even tried to pour some spirits over a bone I came across. I thought some of it might get soaked up but, no, it ran right off. Lets you know how long a thing’s been dead. I think we’ve all mistaken the poison for fresh blood just to cool the night. Everything feels good and damp for a little while but then we get trapped under its canopy, and then the canopy sways and promises to pour. So we howl at it to give it one back and to stay awake under the gathering weight. A gentle quiet like a mother follows.

The moon gets gone fast. Morning stars, critters, beans, rinds, mud (or what we used to know as “coffee”): we toss it all on the popping flame and everyone turns orange.

There are four of us and only three ponies now. Dub went down hard in the crick and twisted something. Everybody agreed it was best to put him out but no one seemed to have any bullets left, the discovery of which made us see and hear all kinds of peculiar things. (Mind, only some of them real.)

By the fourth day soaking in the same sun my shirt doesn’t smell nearly as bad. I’ve been dreaming while I ride and I’ve almost forgotten everything about the depot.  Dub was trailing us by a train car’s length until late last night. I refused to double up so Jake took Avery on.

Something must have picked Dub off or else he just gave up. Up to Avery to figure things out when we ride in again. When we do, I’ll be sending you this letter. When we do, I’ll figure out about this itch. I tried all day long but I couldn’t picture your ears anymore. We’ll need bullets – that’s really the first thing. I hope that by writing it down it will help me to remember…

I think I cracked a rib laughing when I got your letter. But you mention a photograph and I shook the paper like a goose and nothing like a photograph fell out so I backtracked practically halfway back to the depot. I rode looking so tight in the jaw that nobody even asked what we went back for till we finally stopped.

Funny to look at progress as it vanishes under you. We could see where Dub started to fade and where he gave a good last push right before he dropped down to his knees.

They didn’t ask – they all figured I’d tracked back for Dub and I worked up tears because I hadn’t found you anywhere. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

- @ubree

“I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.”

-Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

click photo for photo credit

In the morning, there is sun. That’s what Mommy said. Sun in the morning. Her hands play in the light with all its scattered its and bits, can’t catch them, they whip and whirl like little fish through her fingers. I open my mouth to the light, maybe I can eat them, but they don’t taste like anything. It just feels warm, like sitting in the bath. I see them in the morning when Mommy comes to let the sun in. They dance and twirl; they are so tiny tiny tiny. I am so small, but they are smaller still. They are so many, but only in the sun. They are sun babies, Mommy says. I can’t find them in the dark. The moon has no babies.

I am running. Mommy is chasing me and I am screaming. I can feel her just behind me, a creeping, tickling fear where my neck meets my body. She is almost there; she has almost got me. I know it is Mommy but the fear is still there – the fear of touch where there was none. Where will I feel it? I don’t know and that is fear. It is thrilling. I scream with joy when she grabs me by my side and throws me in the air. Her face is in my belly. I am laughing laughing laughing. I never know where her touch will find me. That is the tickle in my neck.

Daddy! My arms in the air, hands stretching. I want my fingers to grow. He lifts me and kisses me, sets me down. They are talking talking talking. Always talking. But they smile and I smile and they kiss and I grab Daddy’s leg. Look look look at me! I feel his hand on my head, like when Mommy washes my hair and it feels heavy and drips. But warm, like the sun. Then he is gone.

I don’t know where he goes. He always comes back, but I don’t know where he goes. Sometimes I cry. I cry and cry and don’t stop until Mommy picks me up and we dance. She pokes my sides and tummy and I laugh. She puts me in my chair, my special big girl chair, and gives me cheery ohs and apple and I am happy. I tell her it is ummy and I have cheery ohs on my chin and she laughs at me.

Mommy works. Tap tap tap on buttons. She taps on buttons very quickly and they make letters. It sounds like my bucket when I leave it in the rain.

I run. I am an airplane! My arms dip and rise and I jump! over the rug mountains. I land in bed. Under the covers, there is a city. I push my legs up and hold the covers over me to look at the city. The sun shines through and lights up the city. I talk to the man-in-charge and poke him. Daddy says he is the man-in-charge when I will not take my bath or I will not eat my food. The man-in-charge in the city will not take his bath and I tell him to go to bed. My hand is a horse with finger legs and he rides it home. My hands are horses riding over the city and my knees are hills. They run run run so fast and when they jump it is like they are flying.

I want to do my letters. I tell Mommy I want to do my letters and she gets my special book and red marker (I hate the blue marker and I hate the black marker). She sits with me and opens my book and I look at the letters. They are so pretty. I try and try but I can’t write them so pretty. Mommy holds the marker with her fingers. I can’t do that. She makes the paper so nice and I mostly rip it on accident.

Daddy! I want to write Daddy letters. Mommy smiles and says ok ok What do you want to tell Daddy? I am biting the red marker and it feels hard in my mouth. It tastes like my doll’s feet but not as sweet. I want to say I love love love him and he should come back. That is not so much to say; I think I can do that. Mommy puts her hand around mine and I hold the marker tight as she helps me make letters. When Mommy helps me, the letters look better. Not so pretty as Mommy’s, but better than mine. Sometimes I make them the wrong way or too big. She helps them look pretty. Neat she says. Like feet I say. She laughs and shakes her head. Mommy’s hair is beautiful and brown and wraps around my fingers when I fall alseep in her lap. It makes loops like mine makes loops because she is my Mommy.

I am making letters and my hand feels hot. The marker makes a squeaky sound like the little mouse on tv. Mommy is behind me and my back feels warm. We finish the letters and I tell Mommy to read it. It is I love you and want to see you. I clap my hands and kiss Mommy. Is that all? she says. No no, more! I say. Say a very silly thing because Daddy is silly and laughs like I laugh. Say a silly secret that will make him laugh. I laugh and jump in the air. I dance around the room and run like the finger horse. I squeak like the mouse on tv. I am so happy I want to fly like an airplane. What’s the secret, Ava? Mommy says and she is laughing too.

The secret is Poop! I bite my fist and roll onto the floor laughing. Mommy tickles me with her fingers and I hear the paper underneath me. It sounds like old brown leaves when it is cold outside.

-flossie

Soon Schultz was serving watered-down beer and bad whisky. Soon the numbers players had no chance at all. It was around this time of night that the flow of alcohol would slow, the mood would heighten and Schultz would wait patiently for the room to crack, its inhabitants like a drowsy monster under the waning influence of a powerful anaesthetic. A little water in every mug, a couple of splashes from the special whisky bottle – the one that sat open in a dusty shaft of sunlight in the muggy back room; it didn’t take much to turn his customers, a bunch of questionable characters to begin with. And turning them was the the main objective. They were better ripe.

“What is this, Schultz? Tastes like shit,” slurred a man in a darkened corner of the bar. His head lay cradled in the palm of one hand, the other hand wrapped around a glass with brown liquid in it. His face had a deeply etched five-o-clock shadow and his eyelids were dipping open and closed like two boats bouncing on the tide. He wasn’t alone at the table. Two men flanked his sides; one man was slowly sipping a stale beer; the same beer, Schultz noticed, ordered an hour ago when he first walked in. He sat angled obtusely in his chair, his legs stretched like two pool cues in front of him. Chin tucked into his chest, he was eyeing Schultz. The second man seemed less relaxed, fidgeting with his hands by swirling his whisky in the glass and drumming his fingers on the table.

“It’s what you always get Manny, and you should be happy for it.” Schultz balled up a dirty bar rag and hurled it at Manny’s face. Manny’s eyes opened wide and blinked a few times to register where he was. He sat up in his chair and slammed the rest of his drink down his throat. Muttered something as he shifted in his seat, but it was inaudible.

“When’s this gonna happen, Schultz? I didn’t come here to sit around all night.” The man swirling his whisky stopped drumming his fingers and finished his drink. They were getting restless.

“Joe, we do this every month and every month you give me guff. Why don’t you just take your game elsewhere and leave me the hell alone already?” Schultz got a clean bar rag and used it to wipe down the bar. Anything to look busy. Let them get riled. He knew Joe wouldn’t ever go anywhere but here for the numbers, but he liked to push him anyway. Joe was a pain in the ass. Always complaining about something. Tommy wasn’t so bad about it, but that worried Schultz more. Too quiet. Never really drank anything, just got the beer to hold it. Like if he didn’t hold something, his hands might find themselves wrapped around something else. This kind of game, someone gets too quiet, it’s not a good sign.

Schultz looked at the clock ticking too loudly on the wall: 10:30pm. With no glass front and brown streaks running down its face, it looked like someone started a fight by throwing drinks around. He was amazed it still worked. He look around his bar at the men sitting quietly in their chairs. He tried not to look at their faces; I hate their faces, he thought, as he polished the metal of the beer tap. There was only one TV in the whole place and most of the men stared at it vacantly, as if they were watching something they’d already seen a hundred times. No sound, no color. Just a broken TV playing the news, the picture wavy, mutilating the faces of the newscasters. One pool table sat lonely in the corner of the bar; there were no balls or sticks to accompany it. They had all broken or gone… missing. None of the chairs matched the tables, none of the tables matched each other. Everything had been found on the street; other people’s garbage. It even smelled that way, musty and damp like the rolled up sock he used to keep the water pipe from soaking the floor and rotting the wood. Such a deadbeat bar, Schultz thought, how did I wind up in such a deadbeat bar? But he knew how. It was the game. This deal he made with the men and the devil that twitched inside him. Had to play the game. Even if he never made the money, which he rarely did. Last time he made any money, he bought a TV. A black and white number that eventually went mute.

It had started out well enough. His mother had died, leaving him a little cash. Not much, but enough. The place wasn’t especially clean; there was no furniture; the entrance was below street level. It didn’t even have windows. All it had was a bar with shelving and beer taps, and a tiny apartment above it. All he needed, really. He figured it must have been a speakeasy at some point, Shave and a Haircut and all that. Except for moving in the used furniture and the pool table, he hadn’t changed much about it. People still knocked to get in, and even then, you had to know the right knock.

“Schultz, seriously, where is this guy? Kid don’t usually deliver this late.” A man in the far back pushed his seat out and stood up, stretching his arms out above him. He was tall and thin and Schultz could see the sharp ridge of his lower rib cage as it peeked from beneath his shirt, two sizes too small. Jim. Junky Jim. Everytime he left the bar, Schultz thought he’d never see him again. But he always came back, itching, red eyed, licking his lips. The money was too easy.

“Jim, come on now. I can’t predict this shit.” Schultz poured a glass of whisky from the bad bottle and slid it down the bar to Jim, who moved over the tables like a spider to grab it. “He comes when he comes; gimme a fucking break, all of you, all right?” Schultz slammed a glass down and quickly filled it with good whisky – a glass for himself. As he finished topping it off, a knock came at the door. All the heads in the bar turned to look. The first knock was followed by four quick knocks, a long pause, then one last knock that sounded like a flat palm had slapped the door. The heads turned back to their former positions as one guy got up to unlock the door.

“Hey fellas – I see I didn’t miss anything,” Phil said as he sidestepped the man at the door and came inside. He patted the guy on the back and took off his coat, throwing it casually over his arm.

“How you doin’ Philly,” Schultz sighed. His heart started beating again; he almost hadn’t noticed it stopped. It always stopped when someone came to the door. He poured Phil a glass of the good stuff and passed it over the bar. Phil sat at the bar, the only one to ever sit at the bar. He looked at Schultz as he took the glass, keeping his gaze as he tipped it down his throat. Phil was a good looking guy, clear blue jewel eyes under a mountain of thick, black hair.  The first time Schultz met him he liked him immediately, although he didn’t trust him. He was almost too good looking, too sweet with his tongue, too together. But he liked him, nonetheless. Phil helped set up the game; he knew more about the numbers than Schultz did, had experience in Chicago from years ago. Back then they picked the numbers with roulette tables or by taking the last three digits of the National Debt at midnight. Phil helped Schultz with that demon in his gut, customizing the game so that it was his show. Schultz fed his demon and Phil made a little money – it always worked out. They got along the way two crocodiles might get along, snapping their jaws at each other, living in the same river, sharing the fish. Eyes always above water, watching.

“I’m good Shooly, I’m good. They gettin’ antsy?” Phil jerked a thumb behind him, indicating the guys in the bar. A couple of the men straightened up and looked at each other, as if Phil could see them through the back of his head. Junky Jim started shivering and stamped his feet as if he could shake out the tremor that way.

“Course they’re antsy – what’s new?” Schultz came around the bar and sat down next to Phil. Phil spun his stool around theatrically and faced the room.

“You guys got a problem waiting, huh?” He got up and cantered over to Manny, who was by now fully awake. Manny looked like he was trying to swallow something that wouldn’t go down.

“You want to run numbers tonight, Manny?” Phil lowered his head down to Manny’s level and looked him in the eyes, his hands resting on his thighs.

“N-no Phil, guy’s gonna come for that.” Manny picked up his empty glass and looked into it. He backed his chair out and stalked over to the bar, placing his glass by Schultz. Schultz leaned over the bar and grabbed the bad bottle, filled the glass. Phil was still leaning over, as if Manny had never moved.

“Ok then, everybody’s happy!” Phil said as he rose up and stretched his hands into the air, triumphant. Just then, the door knocked. All heads turned. Shave and a Haircut. Phil took long steps to the door and put his ear against it, smiling. He waited about a minute before- Shave and a Haircut. The knock again. Schultz pulled out a glass and set it on the bar. Phil balled his hand into a fist and suspended it motionless in front of the door. Shave and a Haircut. Three times now. Phil knocked his response, Two bits, and unlocking the door, opened it slowly. The men in the bar sat up in their chairs, leaned toward the door.

“Well, hello friend! Come in, come in, please come in.” Phil stepped aside and stretched his arm out, showing the way in. A short man with a long brown coat and fedora stepped inside. He took off his hat as Phil closed the door and, with one hand at the little man’s back, Phil ushered him to the bar. Schultz’s heart began to pound heavily and he could feel a tingling sensation stretch out from his stomach to his fingers and toes. The demon was waking up.

“What’ll you have?” Schultz asked as the man took a seat at the bar. Phil couldn’t contain his smile as he sat down on a stool three seats away from him.

“Oh, I dunno, I guess… ” The man fidgeted with his hat, turning it in circles, his fingers feeling the brim like a blind man. “…I guess a beer is good. Any beer.” The man had small, winking eyes, maybe he needs glasses, Schultz thought, and a face that dropped off at the chin, sloping inward like the neck of a turtle.

“What brings you here?” Schultz asked as he placed the beer in front of him. The little man looked at the perspiring glass, then looked down the length of the bar. He wants a cocktail napkin for his beer, Schultz thought. In a place like this, he’s looking for a goddamned napkin. He looked at Phil, who could only watch and smile. The bar was deathly quiet. Schultz jerked his head towards the men as the little man closed his eyes and took a sip of his beer. Phil got off his stool and turned to a couple of guys sitting at a table a few feet away. He started talking loudly to them, the sound of his voice echoing in the room. Most of the men had their eyes on the back of the little man at the bar, but the sound of Phil’s voice broke through whatever spell the little man cast, and they all began talking to one another in easy, conversational tones. The bar was suddenly alive. 

“I… I don’t know. There was a boy two blocks down. Asked me… well, he told me… said there was a game?” The little man looked up at Schultz, his tiny eyes like pin pricks in his face, winking. Schultz could feel the blood rising in his body. His fingers twitched on the bar and he tightened his grip on the wood, his knuckles turning bone white.

“You ever play numbers?”

“No, I… I mean, I’ve heard… I know you can make some good money, and I thought…” The little man stumbled over his words as if they were falling out too fast and he needed to gobble them back up. He took a long draft from the beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Schultz could see Phil smiling over the little man’s head, his eyes locked on their conversation.

“You thought you could make a little extra cash, bring it home to the wife?” Schultz leaned against the back of the bar and folded his arms over his stomach. He could feel his heart pounding in his gut, wondered if it was like an echo chamber: everyone could hear.

“Oh no, no, my wife… she doesn’t like this kind of thing. I only thought… I went to the race track, lost some money. I only thought…”

“You could make it back?” Phil couldn’t help but chime in. Schultz shot him a dirty look as the little man turned around to see who spoke. The smile on Phil’s face wavered slightly; he didn’t like to see Schultz upset. No one did.

“I was hoping I could, yes. Make some back.” The little man squinted at Phil, then turned back to Schultz. “If I could make a little back, she might not be so mad.” Schultz imagined his wife at home, a short, fat woman with rollers and a house dress. Probably screeches like a banshee, makes the food and bitches about doing it, and the food isn’t even good. Probably just like Mother; stupid, fat and lazy, and always moaning about something, the kind of woman who would either drive you away or make you crazy, or worse yet make you so mad you-

“What is it I have to do? Is it 3, 4 numbers? I’ve always wanted to bet my mother’s birthday: January 5, 1923.” The little man, having finished his beer, pulled out his wallet and placed a ten dollar bill on the bar. His wallet was fat with bills, and he carefully folded it and placed it back into his pocket.  Schultz took the ten without looking at it, without looking at the little man, and crumpling it in his fist, dropped it in the sudsy beer glass. The game had begun. He wasn’t there anymore.

“Your mother’s birthday, huh?” Schultz walked to one end of the bar, bent over, picked something up from the ground. “Everyone wants to play their mother’s birthday. Everyone.” He looked to Phil, who was already getting up from his chair. A couple of men, Junky Jim and Tommy included, got up too and stood behind Phil, waiting. The other men simply fell silent and stared at the tables in front of them, as if they were the background tableau of some theatrical scene.

The little man stepped off the bar stool and picked up his hat. Like a rabbit, bird, any small creature, he sensed a shift in the room, in Schultz. Something turned over, the ears pricked up, the nose twitched, the hind legs tensed; he was a small animal who, in the search for food, didn’t realize the cave he had entered, it’s inhabitants. Fear entered his body, his legs shaking so badly Schultz could hear the rustle of his pants as the fabric rubbed against itself.

“What is this? What’s going on?” The little man backed away from Schultz, who had rounded the bar and was now leaning against it, one arm behind his back. The backed right up into Phil, who grabbed his arms from behind and held him tight.

“What’s going on?” Schultz said, in a high-pitched, mocking tone. He wasn’t there anymore. Schultz was somewhere else, polishing the glasses behind the bar, griping at his impatient customers. He was shutting off the lights at night, walking slowly to his upstairs apartment, kneeling and praying before the picture of his mother that hung over his bed. Schultz was stewing tomatoes for a good pasta sauce, just like Mother did. Spritzing the flowers with a bottle so as not to harm the petals. Opening the curtains in the morning to watch the dust as it fled the sun. Schultz was mopping the floor after she died. Calmly calling an ambulance. Picking up teeth.

“You wanted to play some numbers, right?” Schultz was standing in front of the little man. Just as he began to scream, Phil clamped a dirty rag over his mouth. He struggled like a caught pig, his little legs kicking the air. Phil lifted him up easily. Schultz let his hand drop. Something slim and silver flashed like lightning in his hand.

“What was it, January 5, 1923?” Schultz said as he slid up to the little man. “Phil, do we have that?” Phil laughed, nodding his head.

“We have guesses at January, so men who placed the month win a quarter of the pot,” Phil said, and nodded to Manny, who went to the bar and removed a box with a tin top. He opened it and began removing bills, counting them. The little man’s eyes went wide as he realized what was happening.

“That’s not enough winners,” Schultz whispered. He looked the little man in the face; sweat was dripping over his forehead, into his eyes, which blinked rapidly like the shutter of a nickelodeon. Schultz’s right hand came up and shot forward, retracting quickly. The little man screamed in agony as his shirt turned red and blood began to drip down his legs, off his shoes.  Schultz felt a warmth growing in his belly, spreading outward; his mind was awake; he licked his lips and made little bouncing steps with his feet, a smile spreading over his face.

“The wallet,” he whispered, and Junky Jim stepped forward, his hands quivering slightly. He reached into the little man’s back pocket, removed the fat wallet. The man had begun to shake uncontrollably, moaning into the dirty cloth over his mouth. Schultz opened the wallet, looked at the bills. He removed something, then tossed the wallet over to Manny at the bar. Manny scrambled to catch it, then resumed his counting.

“Well gentlemen, we have our winning numbers for tonight,” Schultz said as he looked at the card in his left hand. He tapped the bloodied knife in his right hand against his pants with an even rhythm. The little man felt his head being pulled back under Phil’s hand.

“March 8, 1957. 3, 8, 5, 7.” Schultz lifted his right hand and made a clean swipe across the little man’s neck. His body stuttered and hiccuped as Phil loosened his grip, letting him fall to the ground.

“Any winners?”

-fl0ssie

Soon Schultz was serving watered-down beer and bad whiskey. Soon the numbers players had no chance at all.

The Tuesday band was lousy and the bass player had no respect for Enzo. Schultz would have done something back in the day. Now he sits there all slumped over and snores through the set. Once Dottie even came in with Schultz’s dinner, oven-hot, mitt still on, and shoved it right under his nose. He said something in his sleep that nobody understood and drooled some. Must have been that Schultz hadn’t been home in days because Dottie snatched the plate back and left it in the stairwell where the bums tend to sit and watch the shiny shoes go by. You might have thought the bums had struck gold except that Dottie was a terrible cook. If you could get close enough to her to smell her perfume, though, you might find other reasons to go home.

“Listen, Enzo, En…zo: I’m going to get right to the bottom of this thing.” A finger goes down hard on the table.

“Sure. Don’t be surprised if what you find’s no different from the stuff you scrape off the bottom of your shoe. It’s got to do with Faraway Farm, ManO’War, all the stuff I don’t wanna talk about. ‘Nother splash here, Matt.”

Tap-tap. The bartender advances like a table football player and empties the rest of the bottle into Enzo’s glass, then loads contempt into one eyebrow and slinks off like tomcat.

“Got his wife driving around in a real jalopy these days.” Clyde reaches for his Chesterfields and swipes a couple of times before he realizes they’re not on him.

“Pathetic.”

“Pathetic.”

“No, Clyde. You. You’re in rot shape. And you’re going to be in worse shape if you keep running your mouth. Like some kinda broken dumb hose. Like a leak.”

“I better take one of those…”

“I’ll bet.”

Clyde slides off of his chair, his feet far from the ground. In an effort not to feel like a kid at the adult table, he’s got a lean practiced, but that never helps with this part. Got to keep it together to make the book later. Right now, Enzo’s face is bleeding into mahogany. The drums are glittering and together with the bass, look almost like a Christmas tree. Christmas. That’s a nice clean thought; clean sheet in the breeze. Hang on, hang on…

As Clyde gets past the band and pulls at the back curtain, the drummer clashes the cymbals together in his direction. Laughs go up into thick gray air like bad-weather fireworks. Anger finally wakes Schultz up. It’s about time someone put a stop to the lousy music. Not worth the risk. And that’s all it ever is, thinks Clyde, passing a guy who’s full-on weeping in the back room. All it ever is is running the numbers. He hiccups, drawing a few more sneers from the Backroom Boys as he approaches the men’s. If Schultz knew how to run a business he’d get the girls back. He’d pull his investment at the China Diner. He’d keep his paws out of Faraway Farm.

Clyde decides that this will be his last Tuesday at the pig when he steps into the men’s. Time to focus on the books and putting down a letter to his brother. He wouldn’t mention anything about the poor guy’s shoulder. The poor guy…wouldn’t mention anything about the Red’s season. He’d stick to girls. Time to focus on getting Fran’s married name. Time to make a phone a call. But first, time to figure out what happened to his Chesterfields…

- @ubree

Minute twelve. We’ll start with the apogee girl:

How much longer, because this bird has sharp little feet, she thinks. Also: I can feel his longer looks. Cartoon corn typewriter. Back to me, and back to me, and back to me. Arm heavy…why? Don’t let the cup slip. Nearly nothing in it. Reflection of a cloud in a shallow acid sip. Be still. A real natural at sitting still, thanks to Mom and the bootstrap promise in every inflection. (Speaking of “sips”.)

Red rover, red rover. She tries to make measurements by the fly buzzing between them.  (Her and the girl in the ochre-colored dress with the “where is my chariot” face, bangs to match.) Maybe four or five minutes after they started is when she first heard buzzing. Going for maybe two or three minutes now. Thought it went away but then it came back. Maybe a minute gone? Does no one else have the urge? Everything she should have said last night is gathering in her left hand. It could form a thick anaconda coil – a knockout lump of tense flesh and abetting bone – before he even finishes mixing the colors for her hair. Shake the whole scene down! Take this table and use the whole of it to swat a single fly! Staring just past his un-ironed pant leg, through a thicket (the king loser of thickets, she thinks, because it’s all sun-charred and no good at concealing anything), she spends a second entertaining the idea that she might have been wrong about last night. This elk belly. Hot enough head already, thank you. But no, she quickly backs away from regret.

Papillons, Op 2:7, “Semplice” is looping in her head. She holds the cup up and a single thought reinforces it: down with danger! Plenty old and facing my own. She’ll stay out in the forest tonight if she wants and make up a story if she wants; join the band and back at dawn. She has to see their eyes to know what they’ve seen; she has to hear their weary instruments droning in unison with her own ears. According to her cousin, their gold bracelets jangling gave them away. According to her cousin (who only told her two lies ever as far as she knew), the elder’s scar was made by a bear’s claw.  Stories never satisfy.  But night seems far enough away. “Semplice” is fifty-six seconds long. That was…how many now?

Feeling thin and fickle, it must be afternoon by now, thinks the girl on his far right. (You’d feel the hour in a frock like that.) Ahh, to be the painter, not the painted in this life. But between her baths and long naps, she never managed much of anything at all.

- @ubree

Allegory of the Four Elements, by Mark Ryden, 2006

She is always the first to arrive. This does not bother her; it is a simple fact. The cups are arranged neither haphazardly nor precisely, but rather sit, empty in their saucers, awaiting the preferred placement of those to whom they will serve. Four perfect, white cups cradled in four white saucers; they gleam, dazzling in the sunlight.  Positioning her own cup directly in front of her, she runs her hands over the smooth corrugations in the bole, feeling the warmth of the wood under the sun. The tree has many hundreds of years within it; she reads the lines like Braille, closing her eyes. A ring – A family of robins stains the branches like droplets of blood; they lay eggs, grow old; their babies stretch wings, leave; they curl in empty nests and die. A different ring – the river floods, the ground rumbles under hard hooves, soft paws; branches break and are lost in the rising water; the musky, mottled scent of animals passes as they flee to the mountains. She doesn’t move too far outward. There was a time when she would have, but that ache is old and painful, and unnecessary now. She opens her eyes and sighs contentedly; the cups are set; she is happy to have never chipped or cracked a single piece in transit. As if she could.

Atla is second to arrive. She pulls herself clean of the roaring river and steps onto the heated sand. This takes special effort and always leaves her feeling desperate and drained, melancholy and aching with loss. Fortunately, the feeling passes quickly. The flapping tail atop her dark head cheerlessly prods her towards the giant bole. She shields her eyes from the sun and looks to the bole; a lone figure with a long back and straight, flaxen hair sits motionless. Beyond her lies a dark forest and beyond that, a great mountain with its head poking the clouds. The fish on Atla’s head smacks open its mouth as if to encourage her; the weight of its body is an assurance. She kneels before the river and runs a hand through the flowing water, which seems to part at her touch, then envelopes her hand lovingly. A smile trickles through her face, lifting her features, and she removes her hand and turns to face the hill. The figure has not moved and remains sitting before the bole. Atla walks steadily up the hill; her feet lost within the waves of her black, serpentine skirts gives her the appearance of driftwood as it rides a gentle current. Behind her a trail of slick, wet grass leads the way back to the river.

“Hello, Terra.” Atla lightly touches her sister’s golden shoulder and takes the seat beside her. Her skirts lap softly against the bole, even as she is still.

“Hello, Sister. And what of today?” At the sound of Terra’s voice the creature that sits astride her head lets a shiver loose through its body, the bushy tail like dandelion seeds shifting in the wind. It was resting until now, curled at her crown. From a distance, its tawny body seemed to Atla like a bun in her sister’s hair. It chitters nervously, its tiny front paws pensively preening. There has been silence for so long.

“Today was tepid. I had a moment of sheer sadness, but this did not last.” Terra nods her head in assent, her eyes drifting towards the mountains.

“Ilma is here,” she whispers softly. Both heads turn to the figure as it drifts down over the mountains. At first glance it seems that an errant cloud has moved astray of the cumulus flock, which clusters around the shepherding mountain as if corralled by an unseen hound. The runaway cloud takes form and color. A small bird is popping atop the light and delicate head of a small, graceful girl. She is attenuate and diaphanous against the dark, cross-hatched forest, and as she lands before the bole the leaves and slightest branches on the trees around her quiver, the grass swaying like drunken dancers at her feet.

“Hello, Sisters!” she sings aloud gaily. She runs and it is as if wings stretch out for miles on either side of her, the grass bending in her wake. “I have brought the Ewer!” She is slighter than her sisters. Her skin is so pale as to almost seem silver – the color of snow under the pregnant moon – although not in a way that might denote illness. Ilma glows. She sits opposite Atla, who regards her with half-lidded eyes. The bird above Ilma is pacing the small expanse of her snowy head, chirping in mimicry to her speech. Ilma produces a slender, silver ewer from the folds of her dress and places it carefully. It shimmers and vacillates on the table, as if it were also occupying space somewhere else. The pursed spout of the ewer is delicate above the thin neck and handle, which curves over its profile like a lock of fine, newborn hair. A symbol is carved into its surface of a crescent over a circle, balanced above a cross.

“I am here; we may begin.” A fourth girl quickly takes the remaining seat between Ilma and Terra and places a nest upon the bole. The action is so fluid, so fast, as to deny any gradational movement. It happens as a flash; one moment there was an abscess in the crescent of girls; now there is none.

“Welcome, Pele,” Terra rumbles. Her voice sends pebbles skittering obliquely down the distant mountainside. Pele nods her acknowledgment to each of the girls in turn. A small stag sits with legs folded atop her head and bows its antlers in unison with her. They do not seem surprised or moved by her sudden appearance. The abrupt arrival, paired with the pale pink rosiness of her cheeks, would seem to accompany a matched heaviness of breath, or veil of perspiration over Pele’s soft skin. This is not the case. She has arrived in perfect stillness, a jag of lightning frozen against an obsidian sky. Pele’s hair glows red under the brilliant sun.

“I see why we have gathered, Sister Pele,” Terra murmurs, gesturing to the nest. It sits in the center of the bole. Three small babies lie nestled inside a cradle of twisted twigs, their eyes fluttering in sleep. They are smaller than human infants, no larger than sparrows. Directly the nest was placed upon the bole, all four girls eyed it; Terra, a little warily.

“Yes, Sister Terra. It is of the utmost importance. But first… Atla?” Pele lifts the ewer and passes it to her sister. Atla accepts it with both hands and closes her eyes. All of the girls bow their heads as the symbol on the ewer begins to glow blue; there is a sound of a brook-water running over stones; the carp on Atla’s head tilts forward, its mouth opening. A cool, clear liquid falls from its lips like water over a cliff, misting as it pours into the ewer. It hits the silver with a hollow tinkle, a seraphic sound that echoes into the air.

Atla passes the ewer back to Pele as the carp closes its mouth. The stag on Pele’s head rises and stamps its hooves. Pele closes her eyes and bows her head to the ewer. Her hair falls forward, cloaking the ewer in a crimson shower. The stag lowers its neck and snorts, its nostrils flaring around puffs of smoke that billow into the ewer. She lifts her head and passes the ewer to Terra as the stag resumes its folded position on her head. The ewer bubbles and steams in front of Terra.

Terra is quiet compared to the lively rodent dancing on her head. It has skittered and scampered about during the whole procession in anticipation of this act. As the ewer is passed to Terra, it leans forward expectantly, its front paws folding and unfolding, its tail flickering like a furry whip. Terra closes her eyes as the rodent opens its front paws outward. Something crushed and fragrant cascades from its tiny hands into the ewer, an earthy, scented mixture of herbs and spices. It prances back to the crown of her head as Terra opens her eyes and pushes the ewer towards Ilma.

Ilma places her hands gently around the ewer and closes her eyes. The bird on her head chirps and hops forward, fluffs its wings, fills its red breast with air and begins to sing. As it sings, it flaps its wings towards the ewer, pushing the steam into the open air. Ilma smiles as she opens her eyes and lifts the ewer, posing it above the bole.

“It is ready,” she announces, and begins to pour each girl a cup. By now the babies have awakened. One sits with hands fisted and mouth blowing bubbles; the next kicks its legs against the nest impatiently; the third is content just to look from girl to girl, as if it knows what will be said.

“Drink deep,” utters Pele. She takes a long sip and nods to Ilma for more. “This is a matter of dire importance.”

“There haven’t been any in so long,” Ilma whispers, peering at the nest as she fills her sister’s cup. “This is quite exciting!” The bird above Ilma is aloft and fluttering.

“Not since us, Sister,” Atla says, smelling her cup. There is a lilt to her voice, a deep sinking at the end of what she has said. “This brew may not be strong enough for this.”

“It is the strongest, Atla. There is none stronger.” Terra’s voice resounds like an echo in a cavern. The sisters can feel it rumbling the earth under their feet. Her rodent is chittering wildly.

“I was not implying ineptitude, Terra.” Atla grumbles, water bubbling from a geyser.

“We should be rid of them,” Pele bristles. Her eyes smoulder and sheath a deeper conflagration than she can safely allow. Terra rises from the table.

“That is not our way. Even if it were, I would not allow it.”

“Who are you, Terra Sister, to allow me anything?” Pele counters, rising from the table to meet her sister. Her buck has bowed its neck and is shaking its antlers wildly. “They were left. If I had not happened upon them… ” Pele pauses, the heat of her anger staining her face, the color rivaling her burning hair. “It would be an act not entirely unknown to us.”

“We have never acted, Sister,” Terra says, her voice gentler now. “We have only allowed.”

“I say we do nothing,” Atla offers, cutting between her sisters. “They could mean all or very little; to me, there is meager difference.” Her fish smacks its lips carelessly, spraying the table with water.

“Enough!” The word leaves Ilma like a sharp turn of the wind, knocking the others into silence. “We must do what we came to do, and drink of this.” She lifts her cup to illustrate. “We are speaking too fast and thinking too little.” Terra nods her head in agreement as she and Pele slowly take their seats. Atla has held her cup all the while and continues to sip slowly.

The earth stills, and suddenly the rushing of the river ceases and falls mute, the wind abandons the trees to their statuesque silence and all the animals on lofty crowns and deep within the forest are quieted. It is more than silence; it is the vacuum that follows when the skin of sound is ruptured – the nothingness that trails a loud crack of thunder. Even the babies clutch hands and arms noiselessly, their eyes wide as the saucers, which take their cups without the charmed tinkle of glass meeting glass. The ewer is emptied. All of time passes, or none of it. The sun shines strong and bright, hiding Time behind its unchanging face.

“I… still don’t know.” Terra hangs her head dejectedly as her rodent curls itself up on her crown. “This has never happened; I have always known. Perhaps you were right, Atla Sister.”

“No, Sister. Nothing comes to me, either. Perhaps it was my liquid; perhaps it was not fresh.” Atla’s fish laps softly at her charcoal hair and turns its tail to the bole.

“Or my heat,” chimes Pele, “too hot, or not enough.” Her stag has folded itself and closed its eyes in resting.The skin of her cheeks has resumed the hazy coral color of morning clouds; the fight, gone.

“Sisters, we have all done nothing differently. This is at the fault of no one.” Ilma takes her sisters’ hands one by one and squeezes them tightly. As they each look to the babies, Ilma drops their hands.

“We can’t be rid of them; I know this,” Pele whispers.

“We can’t leave them. We must do something,” Atla adds. Her fingers are twisting around a lock of midnight hair. A drop of water falls from the strand and hits the bole.

“Perhaps they are meant to replace us,” Terra whispers. The girls all look to her, fear creeping into their faces. Ilma’s bird begins steadily chirping, like a melodic metronome.

“No,” Ilma says, “There were none before us, and there will be none after us.” She reaches into the nest and lifts one of the babies, cupping it in one hand. The baby is quite small and fits snugly in her palm. Her sisters inhale sharply, holding their breaths in anticipation. Ilma strokes the baby’s belly with one finger; it giggles and pushes at her with one hand, smiling a toothless grin. Ilma laughs and holds it up to them. Her eyes, a cloudless blue, have sharpened to colorless ice.

“Don’t you see, Sisters? We are the four, and always will be.” She holds the baby to her face and presses her forehead to its belly; it places its hands to her skin and gurgles with satisfaction. Her sisters look at the remaining two babies, as if the answer were written on their faces, or hidden in their eyes. Atla holds the leg of the baby who likes to kick, and looks up at Ilma.

“What is it Ilma? What do you see?” Ilma lifts a baby and places it in Terra’s hands, which cup together to hold it. Terra looks down at the infant, a smile spreading over her face like the sun as it reveals itself to the earth. The warmth spreads over the baby as it giggles and reaches for her.

“Oh, Ilma. I see,” she whispers, and hands the child to Pele who, after only a moment, has started to smile and coo, her eyes blazing with an orange fire.

“What is it, Sisters? Please, I don’t-” Before she can finish, Terra has lifted and placed the last child in Atla’s hands, and Atla grows silent, the blue of her eyes pooling like still waters. The baby beneath her is softly patting her palm with its left hand in a soporific rhythm.  She looks to Ilma, who is smiling beatifically.

“My sisters, these are our sisters… and they are new.”

-flossie