A Distant Relative

The smell of rotting crab. That's what he remembers about Celia. They visited his mother's sister too often for everyone's tastes. Even for his mother. Even for Celia. His father flatly refused to put up with it, and every month he waited grim and angry in the van with the icy air blasting through the vents.
Holding his mother's hand tightly he would wrinkle his nose as a wall of sweat, mildew, and rotting crab meat sweltered over them; settling in the folds of their clothes and in their hair. Aunt Celia had a way of scaring the hair on his arm straight up. Sometimes it seemed she enjoyed seeing him squirm and look away. On other days she didn't even cast a glance at him, only yelling and screaming at his mother, throwing a frightening tantrum until her hands were white and shaking from clenching and twisting the sheets she languished upon. He told Reese beneath the monkey bars that his aunt was an alien from outer space. Reese's large nosed scrunched up and he looked scared as he had scurried off to join a game on the field. Aunt Celia certainly looked like an alien. Her skin looked plastic and shiny, and her hair clung to her scalp in limp strands. Her face was ugly and had weird purple splotches across it. Later in class Reese leaned over and asked softly if his parents were alien, or if he was part alien too, because he was related to one. He hadn't known what to answer. The next night his mother got a call from Reese's house. He heard his mother and father talking about it behind their bedroom door.

"Well of course he's going to say that," his father said hotly, "he's got eyes hasn't he? And you expose him to that lunatic every blasted month. Probably warping his brain."

His mother replied softly what she said every month and every visit,

"She's my sister, Jeffrey." her voice got even quieter,
"she's been feeling down lately, and ignoring her won't help anyone."

His father only got louder.

"Oh, she's been down for sure, she lays on that bed like she thinks the Earth has pinned her there. She wants the attention, and you sure dish it out, babying her like a mother hen."

What his parent's said interested him and he payed closer attention on the next trip down to his aunt's. He watched the way her eyes flickered around the room, and then focused waveringly on the corner of the room where the walls met the ceiling. She met his eyes and he immedialtey blinked down to look at his shoes. He curled his toes inside his sneakers and stared back.
Everything was quiet. Celia layed white and pale on her back, slowly she lowered her head onto the waiting pillow and closed her eyes. Her lips moved as if she was speaking but no words came out. His mother bent over her and held her hands, crying a little. It made his stomach twist when a grown-up cried; it was all wrong. He left the bedroom and sat on the dingy living room carpet, letting the smell of the room climb all over him. He thought about opening the front window but the fear of Celia rooted him to the spot. He imagined her waking suddenly and leaping around the room, tearing up the drapes and grinding her teeth, her purple face dripping sweat and eyes boring into his skull. So he sat on the grimy floor with the grimy smell until his mother was ready to leave.
That night he listened to the light underneath his parent's door, laying on his bed in the dark, A single streak of light spread across the sky, his eyes stayed on it until its upward arch dissapeared. He heard his mother crying, and imagined himself flying with that streak of light. A rocket ship returning home.

A Chair for Weary Legs

I don't know if I ever thought I would be a part of this program; and I find myself a little confused about my role in this operation. Should I be comforting those stares and herds of nervous people I see out there? Should I be passing out water, arranging family interviews, silently wandering through the backstage, guiding the performance? I wonder at the time, and I think this is the time when I would be speaking to Darmell, setting up the witnesses in their positions and checking the time for the reporting logs.

He asks me my final words, it's not Lynd, I look up to an empty stranger, who knows none of it, none of me. Of course they had the decency to send a stranger, not a friend, though it wasn't for my sake, and I'm sure Lynd had to petition for the respite. They wouldn't think of those things themselves. I never had.

So what was the specimen thinking before death? they all knew they couldn't know after, and so they must wait until the very last minute, until I brushed against the icy wall, so much worse because I groped out for it; not passing though in natural time, but in tense expectation of the cold. I panicked at the microphone at my mouth, hadn't thought of my last words, I had no symphony to play for the few people that would remember and record my last sound, the last tones in the carbon dioxide I polluted into the air. My voice failed me,


"Am I going to die?"


I hardly knew what I said, but the world went away as the hood came down, and I felt very strongly that I was still waiting in my cell room, with my scratchy blanket against my face, dreading death, not facing it. that I was asleep in my apartment, fearing the sound of my alarm, afraid of waking up.

Unforgotten

She unfolded the letter once, every year, but still its creases were nearly worn apart, as if she had folded and refolded it every day, every minute, the way she did in her head. She re-applied her lipstick for the thousandth time, and dabbed it off for the thousandth time; carefully running the soft white linen around the corners of her mouth, leaving red sighs on the smooth hankerchief. She spread the letter out across her lap, and her ironed skirts rustled. His picture fluttered to the floor, resting beside her shiny black heels. Her thumb had erased any recognizable features, and age had faded the detailed lines. She quickly tucked it into her white starched glove, next to her wrist, as the door squeaked open and a customer came in. She smoothed her fading blond hair back into its perfect placement. A bird sang out in the street and a woman and a man walked in, wrapped in each other's arms. The woman soon left his side to wander the shop, bringing a hint of clean air to the stuffy sweet flowers. He stood behind the woman as she smirked and fingered the roses and gardenias, and scrutinized every leaf on an orchid. She finally chose a small tree plant, scrawny and without marking, proudly planting its grubby pot on her spotless counters. She could see the woman thinking of how she would plant the tree in the center of her garden, and sit with the man while he idly stroked her hair and she sketched their little, ugly tree-child. And she would hang it in her studio up in the woods, by the lake, where she would paint in overalls and a farmer's tan. The man paid for the woman's free willed plant; handing her crisp clean bills across the counter. His smile was warm and his eyes were ice blue; a glimpse of deep brown hair creeped under aging gray. The bird outside stuttered to a stop. But the woman lugged the dirt crusted plant off the counter, leaving dry crumbs of dirt, and heaved it back to the car. The man left with her and the store was quiet. She pulled out the letter once more, and slipped his picture out of her glove. Her eyes roamed over the unrecognizable face. She still dreamed of seeing him in front of her, she still unfolded the letter every year, and saved the forgotten face.

scissors

The little boy picked up his scissors. He dug the tip into the wood and dragged it down in a thin line. These were baby scissors, hardly for slicing through the glossy desk top. What he needed were the real scissors up on the teacher's desk, or the kind his mother had in a mug by the phone. But he couldn't see a way to get the them from where he sat and so he just repeated the same line on his desk with his play scissors until a deeper ridge formed. The edges were rough with fraying wood particles and the line was ugly. This was perfect. The bell had rung and the day was over; the gash in his desk was much deeper. As the teacher helped on coats he was afriad she would look over and say "What are you doing over there?" with the adult voice that already knows you're in trouble. But he quickly covered up the desk top with his chair as all the children clattered their chairs up on their desks and lined up at the door. He put on his ugly coat. Actually it was his older brother's but they called it his now. It was too big, too old, and had a broken zipper, but it was perfect for hiding his mother's old sewing scissors in its large bulky pockets.