"Use a Napkin"

Napkin sketch courtesy of Wesley Wong

"Oh, come on," Davey's father said. He tugged on the boy's sleeve to try to pull his forearm away from his mouth. "You're too old to be wiping your face on your shirt. Use a napkin already."

"You know why he doesn't want to do that," said Davey's mother. "Let him use the back of his hand. He can wash it off later. There's no harm."

"No harm? Next he'll be seeing the Virgin Mary on the front of a tortilla. You're indulging the boy. Making him too soft to deal with reality."

"And you're crushing his imagination."

It didn't matter to Davey what either of them said. He was watching the low red light from the candle in the jar pulse like a heartbeat over the napkin's folds. With each quick shift in the light, the demon's face changed expression, exposing more or less of its sawblade teeth. "Go on, bring me close, boy," the demon begged. "Let me tell you what to do." Davey didn't want to. But maybe, he thought for a moment, while his parents' voices rose above him like shadows, maybe if he did just wipe his face, everything would finally be all right.

"A Package"

 
Instead of a packing label, a note had been taped across the top: "A Mysterious Journey Awaits You."

The husband and the wife looked at each other.

"You sure you didn't order anything?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Everything I got off eBay already came in."

She poked the corner of the box as if she expected it to squish. "They really beat the hell out of it, wherever it came from."

"And it's soaked. It's probably going to start to get moldy soon," he said.

He threw it into the recycling bin, on top of a wealth of glass bottles, told himself that he didn't hear any sounds coming from inside, and went back into the house to get ready for "A Game of Thrones."

"Lights"

 

God said, "Let there shine light in the vault of heaven, to give light on earth." And God made the stars and saw that they were good--for a little while, anyway. Before the fourth day's end, several of the stars burned out, just darkened in a fizzle, dissipating like what would come to be called smoke; and the almighty Lord swore, because the place had really been starting to come together, and already there were a bunch of things piling up that He still had to do, and He had spent so much time on this project--why couldn't things just fucking work like they were supposed to?

Later, days after He had assembled the heavenly host into being and given His breath to man, God said, "Let's tell that guy down there that the seventh day is for resting. There's this thing called 'housework' that's going to come about, and it'll be really interesting to see how he fits it all together."

"The Common Path"

 

"I saw a piece like this at an art exhibit last year," Ada said to her grandmother as they walked. "Some artist dumped snow all over a space inside and had people walk a path across most of it, except at one point a set of footprints veered away from the main path."

"And what was the message of that one? Wait, let me guess," said Mrs. Alvarez. "The melting snow represented all the money the museum was pissing away on stuff it called 'modern art.' Eh?" She bared her dentures in a smile. "Am I right?"

Ada patted her shoulder. "It was the artist suggesting that it doesn't matter whether or not you do something different from everyone else--we all fade and die in the end."

Mrs. Alvarez frowned, trying to shoo away the thought with a wave of her hand. "Ah, you always remember the ones who break away from the crowd," she said. "Did I ever tell you about Jack Derany, from summer camp? We took quite a few of our own hikes apart from the group, if you know what I mean." And Ada's eyes widened and the snow crunched under her boots as the two continued down a path traveled by many people before, the one along which people learn that their family members are human after all.

"She's Got Legs"

 

"I know it's your first big makeover," Tina's aunt said as Tina poked one of the legs that dangled like slabs of meat from the hanger on the door. "I hope you're not nervous. But I completely understand it if you are. After all, we're talking about a whole new you here!"

Tina couldn't look at her. Her aunt's fingers were a clamp crushing her own. "I thought this was more about walking in someone else's shoes for a while," Tina said, the green swamp feeling in her stomach muddying her voice. "I mean, of all the cliched sayings to apply literally to a makeover session, wouldn't that one work better?"

Her aunt's laughter grated like glass beneath a metal edge. "Why, sure, sweetie, we'll go try on some new shoes, too," she said. "But if you think those old legs of yours are the best ones to go doing that in...." She nudged the legs to the side and opened the door. The sign that said "FITTING ROOM" shivered in its fluorescent panic overhead.

"A Letter"

 

I keep leaving the receipts from the library's checkout stations inside the books I borrow, even when I bring the books back. It's not accidental.

At first, so that it could look like an accident, I left the printouts as they were but slid them between the pages of books I had particularly enjoyed, where passages or phrases that had struck me occurred. Then one day I took a receipt and drew an arrow on it, connecting one entry with another. Along the arrow's curve I wrote, "if you like this book...." I slipped the receipt between the last two pages of the text and deposited the book in the book drop. I've since taken to using sad faces and asterisks on my receipts as well.

I don't think the librarians here are able to inspect every page of every book that's returned, because one of the titles I checked out most recently came with a printout tucked inside--one that isn't mine. I know because written on it is a phone number I don't recognize along with a smiley face. And I know it's stupid, but I can't help think, "Is it? Is that really what this is?" Because the books that this person checked out are all really good reads. More than anything, that makes me wonder, and hope.

"Beady Eyes"

Picture from last night's Gumbo Fiction Salon reading. Sorry for the especially poor quality!

"Eyes on the prize, baby!" Marcos bellowed as he spun head first into the kaleidoscope crowd of Mardi Gras. He wasn't speaking to anyone in particular.

He was headed for the prize, though, where she was dancing on top of a table set outside a small cafe. A throng of men surrounded the table, all dropped to their knees as if engaged in worship right there on the sidewalk. Marcos was sure he knew why. She had collected so many strands of beads that she was now dancing with only beads covering what had to be covered. Her back, Marcos saw as her dance turned her around, was smooth and bare.

"Oh, they've got to be perfect," he said when he reached the edge of the reverent crowd. "Show 'em this way!"

The woman whirled and faced him; her hair swayed; her beads swayed. "I don't think you can handle it, little boy," she called.

"Oh, I can handle anything you've got," Marcos said.

So she smiled at him and began to pull her beads aside, a few strands at a time hooked around each thumb or finger. As the curtain parted, Marcos became aware not of a glimmer of flesh but of a gleam of light waiting behind the beads. It started as a small glow, like a candle's. It grew like a magnesium flame as strands of beads were lifted away, and suddenly Marcos knew, as the world went white and his eyes withered, that some things were not meant to be seen so easily. 

"The Unfinished Monument"

 

It was an eyesore, said one lady who, in the two years since the space had been dug out and the cement poured, had become known as something of a crank.

The thing was, most of the people in town agreed with her, though few felt the need to grouch about it so plainly. There was a depression next to what appeared to be a base; a foundation--but for what? The philanthropist who had purchased the land was an eccentric whom nobody approached. The artist she had contracted, after insisting the work he had been hired for was complete, had left.

No one could imagine what kind of statue she had conceived of erecting there, so they instead began to think about what they'd like to see in its place. Fill the hole and pave it over, said the crank, but this time, not many agreed.

A fountain would be lovely, some said. A small garden for native plants, offered others. They talked about the matter while waiting in line at the grocery store and discussed it while strolling past the plot in the bloom of spring. They wrote in to the local paper and posted online. And the philanthropist, who would glance out from the windows of her broad estate whenever news of the dialogue reached her, only smiled and thought kindly of her gift.

"Lottery Ticket"

 

I had thought about buying one for some time, but I established a rule: only if I had change to spare, and even then, only if all the coins were silver. Pennies were out. I didn't want to cause the cashier grief, and I didn't want to earn his pity. I just wanted a lottery ticket, which I needed his register to print. 

One day, a break occurred in the winter chill like a crack in ice, and I walked to the closest convenience store. All the while as I kicked my way there, a conversation played in my head.

"That's a bag of carrots you've got, maybe two at Aldi," one voice said as I studied the coins in my hand. "A book from the bargain bin at the used book store. A tip for that guitarist at the train station. Imagine what you could do if you scrimped and added to it."

"You already know how to live on a budget and save," another voice countered. "This isn't about reality or practicality. It's about allowing yourself to believe in the tiniest possibility of something almost impossible happening. Symbolism at its finest, baby."

"Mister, what are you waiting for?" a third voice asked. "The light's green."

I glanced down. A girl of maybe six or seven was staring at me, one eyebrow arched to high heaven with her impatience. Her look softened when she saw the change I was holding. Quickly she reached into her pocket and dropped something on top of the coins, just as a woman who had battled upstream against pedestrian traffic grabbed the girl's other hand and pulled her into the flow of the crosswalk. I looked at the gift. It was a fortune cookie, unopened.

The pedestrian light had counted down to one second remaining. Why does so much always seem to depend on something so small? I wondered. I stepped into the crosswalk just as the traffic signal switched to red.

"Death and the Child"

 

"Who are you?" the child asked. His face rose over the edge of the table, round and red like the summer sun.

The diminutive reaper turned, startled, having forgotten for some time about the unusual powers of children. "Me? Why, no one at all," she said. "Just something you're dreaming, a tiny figure you've imagined passing through your home."

"But I can see you. And I can hear you."

"Well," Death said with a sigh, "if you must know, I'm one of the most terrifying forces at work in the human world, even though I do nothing wrong. I am small and simple, yet I can and will be found everywhere, eventually. I am power. I am mystery."

"I think you should talk to Space Captain Zoom," said the child, who pinched Death's head and lifted her off the table into his toy box, where, as with his other playthings, he could keep her out of the way until such time as he thought about her once again.

"Friends"

 

"You do know that the only reason you get away with half of what you do is because I care about you, right?" one friend said to the other.

"I know," the other friend said. His cheek, pink and rumpled, rested in the curve of the first friend's back like a drunk on the side of a hill; his lips, dry with drowsiness, moved lazily against the words they shaped. "It's why you're such a good friend," he said.

"I guess," said the first as she turned and looked out into the long years ahead.

"In the Mail"

 

 "Anything good come yesterday?"

"Same as usual. There's another flyer from that new dentist by Flying Dragon. More Steak 'n Shake coupons."

"I never got why people like their burgers so much."

"And a catalog from the community college," she said, flipping the booklet open to a page in the back.

"Ah, yes, where you can learn with the best and brightest in the suburbs and dream of reaching the upper tiers of society. No Arby's coupons in the pile by chance, are there?"

"No, dear," she said, as she dropped the stack of mail and turned to shut the door.

"Pedals"

"Oh," said the girl, looking at her shoes. "Wow. I mean, they're wonderful. Really. Thank you."

The fairy godmother's hand dropped to her side. "You don't like them," she said. Her wand dangled from her fingers like a broken branch.

"No. No-no-no-no, no," the girl said quickly. "They're beautiful. I mean, I've never even seen anything like them. It's just...." Here she gathered her apron and began twisting it. "I have concerns. About how they're going to hold up."

"Oh," said the fairy godmother, with a laugh that seemed to sprinkle glitter all over the ground of the garden. "Trust me, child, if ever a pair of slippers were made for a night of dancing, this pair would be it."

"Well, that's good. That's great. I do some dancing in my act sometimes. But I'm more worried about what'll happen if I start stomping on the pedals."

"The pedals?" the fairy godmother asked.

"Yeah. You know, when I play? On the piano?" The girl's fingers danced across an imaginary keyboard in front of her. "It's going to be the biggest audience ever in my life. All those royals there, and who knows who else will be listening? This could be my break, you know?" The girl looked at the tiny old woman, who floated in the air without much movement, like a bubble about to burst. "Why else did you think I'd want to go to the ball?" she asked.

The fairy godmother stared back for what seemed like a long time. "You're going to hate the dress," she finally said.