I set the microwave oven I bought for Erin on the floor next to the door and head for the liquor cabinet. I’m still wheezing with each breath, a high whistle emanating from my throat not unlike the squeak a dog toy makes when it’s being squeezed. My hand is on the knob when a sharp pain tears through my chest. The room is spinning. Something hard hits my knees. Nausea. Blackness.
~~~
I’m still alive. My hand is touching something cool. And moist. My knees are sore. I smell lasagna cooking and I remember that I’m supposed to be getting a bottle of wine. I’m still holding the handle to the liquor cabinet.
Walt hasn’t come looking for me, so the attack can’t have lasted long. I grab the Sherry and walk into the kitchen, hoping I don’t look as miserable as I feel.
“Thanks, love.” Walt smiles and sets the steaming plate on the table. He pours the wine.
He has no idea I believed myself to be dying only moments ago, and a picture from one of the brochures pops into my mind. A man with his arm around a woman’s shoulder while they look at a bottle of herbal pills.
If only it were that simple.
~~~
The reverend is saying, “Do you promise to love him, honor him, keep him…” and I glance at Walt seated next to me, wearing his freshly pressed suit with his tie slightly off kilter. The tears that I’ve been holding back for months threaten to escape from the corners of my eyes.
Walt catches me watching him and gives my knee a squeeze.
“For as long as you both shall live,” the reverend says.
Something warm and wet trickles down my cheeks and Walt puts his arm around my shoulder.
“You cried at our wedding too,” he whispers in my ear.
I nod, unable to tell him why I’m crying this time.
The ceremony ends and I compose myself enough to go to the reception. We eat veal and potatoes, we sit through the toasts, we chat with relatives whose names we don’t remember.
I watch the girls on the dance floor but I don’t join them. Instead, I lean close to Walt and point at the group of people doing the Electric Slide while the soft, funky tones drift from the speakers.
“Do you remember?” I ask.
He turns to me with a smile. “Excuse me, miss. Could you show me how to do this dance? It looks like fun.”
“And then you turned out to know the steps better than me anyways.”
“Well how else was I supposed to get you away from your mother?” Walt says.
We’ve had this conversation many times. The story of how we met. Our story. We’ve told it to each other many times over the years. After fights, during moments of insecurity, after making love while we’re both still catching our breath.
I wonder if he’ll tell it to anyone when the cancer finally wins, if he’ll tell it to himself as comfort.
The DJ plays a slow song and Walt and I join the others on the dance floor. We sway to the music, our bodies moving in unison and I feel the tears coming again. I blink them back but Walt hears me sniffle.
He lifts my face to look at his and says, “What is it, love?”
Steve Tyler sings, “I just wanna stay with you in this moment forever and ever.”
“Nothing,” I say. “Can we leave after this?”
“Of course,” he says and pulls me closer.
The song ends sooner than I’d like and we say good night to Erin and her new husband. Walt drives us home and I pick at the skin by my thumbnail. We don’t speak. I know he’s waiting for me to begin.
He parks in the driveway and leans back in the seat, gripping the steering wheel the way he does when he’s waiting for a green light. I get out without a word and head upstairs for a bath, shedding my clothes along the way like a trail of breadcrumbs.
As the bathtub fills with water, I turn to the sink to remove the clips and pins from my hair. The makeup around my eyes is smudged and streaming. Inky tears etched into the contours of my cheeks, making the act of crying appear all the more painful.
Walt comes in just as I’m stepping into the water. He doesn’t say a word. He sits on the edge of the tub and twirls his fingers through the soapy bubbles on the surface.
I know I have to tell him, but the words stick in my throat, unwilling to come out. I watch him watching me. His jaw clenches and unclenches. He looks tired, worn out. It almost feels as though he’s been carrying around the weight of a secret as well.
“I’m going to die,” I say.
I’ve planned this moment for months but those words were never a part of any plan. I start to wonder where they came from but then I notice Walt hasn’t flinched. He’s still caressing the water. Most of the bubbles are gone.
“I’m going to die,” I repeat as though he didn’t hear me the first time. “I have cancer.”
He takes a breath and looks at the floor. The seconds pile up on my chest, making it more difficult to breathe with each passing tick of the clock.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I ask finally.
Water drips from his fingertips as he removes them from the tub to loosen his tie. “Fit as a fiddle,” he says. “Healthy as a horse.”
He chews on the words more than speak them.
I bite my bottom lip and he closes his eyes. I want him to say more but I’m afraid of what he might want to say. I want him to tell me we’ll get through it like everything else we’ve gotten through over the years. I want him to wake me up and say it’s all just been a horrible dream.
I don’t want him to get up and leave the room, but he does it all the same. I lay motionless as I listen to his footsteps thudding down the stairs. He walks into the kitchen and I hear cupboards opening and slamming, dishes rattling, something scattering across the table.
And then silence, long and complete, pressing down on me. It curses me for keeping such a terrible secret from the one person I can tell anything to. The figures in the painting on the wall look down on me in shame. I want to close my eyes to block them out, to close my ears from the dreadful silence from the kitchen.
But then I hear footsteps again. Soft, contemplative footsteps climbing the stairs and treading down the hallway. Walt appears in the doorway and looks at me lying in the tub. I watch his gaze move from my face to my nakedness under the water. He smiles a slow smile, a small smile, but I can see the warmth of it in the blue hues of his eyes. I wonder why he doesn’t ask the important questions, the ones people tend to whisper like small children when they’re testing out the sounds of curse words.
What kind of cancer and can they remove it and how long have you got?
He asks none of these, but kneels down beside the bathtub and wipes the makeup from my eyes with a washcloth. It’s only when he cups a hand to my cheek that I realize I’m crying again.
“I should have told you sooner,” I say. “But I didn’t want you to worry. I thought I could get through it alone, I thought it would go away, I thought…” I’m babbling and I know it so I shake my head to stop myself.
Walt helps me out of the tub and hands me a towel. I wipe my face with it instead and let the water run off me to form a puddle on the tiled floor.
“Don’t cry, love,” Walt says and takes the towel. But I can’t stop, so I stand in the middle of the bathroom sobbing while Walt dries me gently.
“Please, love, stop crying,” he says. “We’ll battle this together. Tomorrow we'll do research, we'll call people, specialists. We'll figure something out.”
I nod, relieved even though I've already heard what the specialists have to say, and Walt leads me into the bedroom. My wet hair clings to both our faces as we make soft love to the steady cadence of crickets chirping in the backyard, and when I fall asleep I can almost pretend I’ll sleep until morning.
~~~
In a dark bedroom on the second floor of an old house, a man lies awake crying silently while his wife sleeps. He won’t tell her how frightened his is or show her h
ow much it hurts him to see her suffer. He’ll be strong for her sake. He’ll smile when she needs encouragement, hug her when she needs protected. He’ll be the rock she clings to when the current tries to pull her under.
And when she’s gone, he’ll put fresh flowers on her grave every week and he’ll finish building the deck out back like he promised. And on their anniversary he’ll do the electric slide in the living room by himself.
But for now, he weeps. For now, she is sleeping and he doesn’t have to be strong.
“Oh please oh please oh please,” he whispers to no one in the dark.
In the kitchen downstairs, old appointment cards and prescriptions litter the table like discarded wrapping paper on Christmas morning. A purse sits on its side, empty, defeated. Little white pills scattered. A crinkled wedding invitation with flowing script.
“Before you, I never dared hope,” it says.
Stephanie is a betta fish breeder and an expert at taking care of other people's pets. For the time being, she is biding her time in Scandinavia while she figures out how exactly she's going to make it home to the States on the income of one who breeds bettas. When she's not trying to make her fish fall in temporary love with one another, she enjoys crocheting to the strains of Metallica and having heated debates with her cantankerous laptop.
Anton Krueger
Anton Krueger is a writer/reader; teacher/student; musician/listener; actor/receiver; film-maker/filmwatcher...he breathes in and out within a small town where the water is clean...a lot of beggars come to the door though, & his wife doesn't like him giving them bread and money...but what's a guy supposed to do? the people are hungry...
Self Portrait
Thermal Madonna & Child
Think Funk Trip
Soldier Boys Finds His Girl
Walk in Fire
Michelle Reale
When her latest man had left, she and the boys roused themselves again, because the memories would have been too much. At their new place, boys were everywhere but the roof. Alternately hanging out of the windows, jumping over the rickety rail of the front porch, and sitting in the driver’s seat of the beat up old maverick that sat in the driveway like a monument, pretending to be in control behind the driver’s seat. She listened to them from inside of the house, her windows open, pricking her ears only when the sound of their voices moved away from her. They weren’t used to this place yet.
It was a tough neighborhood to move into. Old Italian women wore black no matter the season, and sat deaf and dumb, watching with gaping, clouded eyes. Short, stocky, men smoked cigarettes down to the filter, promenading up and down the street in the evenings with the particular waddle of the well-muscled, proud of the fact that they had no formal education, but instead, brute strength and common sense. Their wives smoked long, brown cigarettes outside in order to keep things antiseptic and fastidious on the inside. They fiddled with their geometric necklaces and the large cubic zirconias they wore on their fingers caught the glint of the sun, all splinters and sparkle, a blaze of fire and smoke. Their daughters received, but did not deserve, their undivided attention and protection. They acted as if they knew what was good for everyone. She watched the theater of love and protection and puzzled that everyone knew their place.
The women would point their long, curled appliquéd fingernails at her and mouth slut, putana, then laugh, their hard faces grim. They’d watch from their front steps in their cheap sandals and bright matching shorts and tops as she emerged from the house on any given day, stretching like a leopard in the sun. A full display of wavy red mane, milky white, freckled arms and large eggplant sized breasts that were actually her biggest burdens, but were perceived to be her best assets. Bitch, they’d mutter, blowing cigarette smoke that would waft in her direction. Sometimes she’d give those breasts a good hard scratch, distractedly, while looking around for the boys. She’d hear their laughter and the curse words they loved to practice like mantras damn damn damn fuck SHIT! Come here, she’d call to them, softly. They’d crash into her, entwine themselves in her legs, climb her like a tree they wanted to take refuge in. Stop that she’d say occasionally as she yawned. And they’d twist there sticky fists into her hair, but she loved the feel of it, the pain and the sweetness of being touched. She’d place her hands on the heads, their hair like coarse wool, their skin the creamy color of coffee and milk, and close her eyes: safe in the moment.
She ignored the stares, the snide sounding comments she’d hear in a language she couldn’t decipher, marveled that gestures, like the flick of a chin skyward which meant something that could not be good. Sometimes the tone would sting, hit her ear like a small, sharp stone. Then, she’d send up a silent prayer. They needed somewhere to live, after all. The stooped, dark-skinned man who’d rented to her, reluctantly warned, it would not be easy. They like their own he’d said. Six months, tops, he’d said to her, if not before. They’ll bring a woman like you to your knees, he said, eyeing her up and down. Then, in a kindness she’d be unlikely to forget, waived her security deposit. I must be off my ass crazy, he’d said, right to her face, and then walked away ignoring her whispered thank you as if it were just dust at his feet, something he encountered before, but never trusted all the same.
The other mothers kept their precious sons and mean faced daughters away from her boys. She became angry when they couldn’t stay away, tempted by the exoticism, like beggars at a feast. She was so good at being self-contained, a stance she’d cultivated way back when it brought men out of the woodwork, falling at her feet. Each of the boys a token of the men she had loved, if only for a short while, because motherhood wasn’t for everyone, but it was for her.
When she woke one morning, she knew it was time to leave. The soles of her feet felt scorched and sweat had pooled between her breasts. She ran outside onto the porch. She smelled the smoke and leaned over the railing and saw the boys watching the old maverick burn. She smelled the sickening stench of rust and synthetic fibers burn. The fire was at the middle stage, but would reach its potential if left alone to flourish. The air shimmered around the boys like a protective aura and the mother saw the reflection of small licks of flame in their eyes. She might have seen something else, too, but she would never be sure.
She’d left everything behind. Flanked by two boys on her left and one on her right, they walked straight backed and deliberate up the street and away from the house. Past neighbors who might have been speaking in tongues for all that mattered at that point. She had one long arm draped protectively across her breasts. She heard the burst and shatter of glass, but she forbid the boys a backward glance. She left her key under the mat, and felt she owed the landlord the kindness of a phone call at some point. It had been three months, give or take a few days. Tops.
Michelle Reale is an academic librarian in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Her work has been published in a variety of venues such as Verbsap, Apt, Pequin, JMWW, Dogzplot, Freight Train, elimae, Diddledog, Laura Hird and others.
Arka Mukhopadhyay
Morning
Sudden shock of crows
Tearing apart the fabric
Of a slate-grey sky.
Early morning flight
Brings in weary travellers
From a distant land.
The paperman throws
Stories of yesterday's world
Within my four walls.
Sounds of distant death
Shatter the silence within
My half waking mind.
In some dark corner
I hear the lizard ruling
Its empire of death.
A Poem That Cannot Have A Title
This poem (as its title says)
Cannot have one,
Because it is about
The landscape of my everyday
And that is a work in progress -
You don't have a name for your everyday.
Perhaps because it is to
o close to your skin,
But what happens when your everyday,
The streets that you exhale into all the time,
Suddenly become separate, like a piece
Of skin cut away?
Like yesterday,
When I sat at home, unable to get out
Of the street I live on, because
It was blocked by the cops at both ends,
Because someone had thrown
A pig's head into the nearby mosque,
And so I sat in my room, listening to the sirens
And wondering if 'they' would come to cut my head away,
And where would they throw it, if they did?
John Sweet
lament, end of summer, still dreaming of escape
fifteen years in this desert
and i am
fifteen years older
i have mastered the art
of walking slowly down
empty hallways
i have learned the sound
of my father being
kept alive by machines
have learned
the sound of letting go
and on these fading august afternoons
even the burning children
are beautiful
beneath pale yellow skies
their bikes lay at awkward angles
on the empty streets and
wait for salvation
their mothers cry
or their mothers disappear
or they call without warning and
ask me to come over
tell me love is a lie
tell me there are worse things
than rape
and this is not said in anger
but is sung like a lullaby
the houses are not silent
but despairing
these things we do
behind closed doors are always