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Feeling safe means you can say things to your father that you wish you could have said as a five year old.
By TNT
My father was a spy in Central America during the war – I wish I knew the whole story. He traveled by mule through the jungles – but how did he find the doubloons – pieces of eight of silver with the cross on them?
He never spoke of it but he spoke fluent Spanish and even a bit of Portuguese – because I heard him talk to a lady in this idiom. It was quite interesting to realize he had been born in total poverty (in a smoke shack – someone said) and his mother was a half-breed Cherokee who died of T.B. when he was young. He lived under the stairs of a hotel and got a scholarship for football to the University of Kentucky. He was ambitious and during the war he wasn’t accepted.
He met my mother – a teacher going to the Canal Zone employed by the Balboa High School to teach – they met on board a ship and my father was quite handsome with wavy, dark hair. He was old-fashioned and I learned to fear his temper and to distrust his words since he was changeable, irritable, especially when he drank. Once he raised his fist to me as he demanded I eat whatever was on my plate – probably eggs. I looked him in the eye and said: “No” empathetically. I was five at that stage of my life when I felt like saying “No.” He asked again and I repeated myself. “No!” I said. “I’m not a Caribbean slave after all, even if I’m a tiny little girl.”
The worst thing was after repeating my word I turned on my heel and walked away. Before I left I said “You can kill me if you want to, but I won’t change my mind.” I said this to him at 5 years old. To him it was a declaration of independent thought and war. He expected his word to be law and himself worshipped like a God. He was successful in business and a self-made man. How dare I not bow down to his tyranny. I was never safe again in my life.
Before my father died he phoned me and said “If you can prove you are worthy I’ll let you inherit my silver goblets.”
He had melted the pieces of eight and made them into goblets – which was foolish as they were more valuable as coins.
And what did I say to this? Because it was a telephone call I felt safe and so completely honest I said: “I do not have to prove myself worthy to you or anyone except my maker. So I hope you have a luggage rack on your hearse. Or else stuff them up your arse.” I hung up.
It was the most outrageous thing I ever said to him. Feeling safe means you can say things to your father that you wish you could have said when you were five. After all – I’m not a Caribbean black slave.
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By RMAF
Stephen Steppingout was a strange man indeed. Some people said he has a dual personality. Some people said he has a split personality. His wife says he has an infidelity personality. People around him said he talks to himself and sometimes praises himself and sometimes he admonishes himself. Like today, his fellow workers heard voices coming from over Stephen’s adjoining cubicle. “I have to depend on your being here, don’t you know by now that’s what I need from you?”
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By BG
Yes, poor Floyd passed away at 36 and it was such a shame to see his bones displayed as per his last will and testament instructions. His memorial service, though puzzling to most of us who knew him, did uphold the message he wanted to convey, though contrary to our previous interactions with him throughout his time on this earth. As we filed out the door at the end of the hour we spent gathered also per instructions in his last will and testament, each of us was handed a postcard of Floyd’s last uncharacteristic pose and the words “The meaning we make of our lives changes how and what we remember” written on the back. We all looked at each other and thought does he really think posing his skeletal remains would mean we thought better of him?
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By MD
When Aitken adopted me, I know he would have preferred to bring home a Scottish terrier. A pug like me was surely low on his list, probably even lower than an Irish Wolfhound or a French poodle. But, as you can see by the photo I’ve chosen to accompany this story, I’ve evolved a confrontational (albeit bug-eyed) stare which is hard to resist. So Aitken and I bonded and he brought me home to his Glasglow book store where I served as his mascot and boon companion. Until, that is, the year 1771 – the year of the book-boring beetle. Actually, Aitken accused me of bringing in the cursed vermin, but my patented bug-eyed expression quickly disavowed him of that notion. Whatever, or whomever, the culprit, Aitken’s bookshelves were speedily decimated and he had to close up shop.
We were at loose ends for a while until Aitken received a letter from a long lost relative who had emigrated to Philadelphia – in the British Colonies of course – some years before. Before you could say “hoot-mon” we were on the boat headed for the New World. Of course, Aitken arrived in Philadelphia in May 1771 from Scotland, where (as previously related) he was already established as a binder and bookseller. What happened to him after that, I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you. You see, I fell in love on the boat with the ship’s cat. She, of course, found my sultry bug eyes and turned down ears irresistible. So my life now is an existence of domestic bliss – in spite of the naysayers – where Kitty and I travel back and forth from Scotland to the colonies. Truly, it’s one long honeymoon. As far as Aitken goes, I wish him well, but I’ve never really forgiven him for accusing me of being the carrier of the book-boring beetle and the cause of his destruction. And that, lads and lassies, is the end of my story.
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Letting bygones be bygones, he continues on his way
By RC
Igor didn’t mean to become a giant, it just sort of happened. He could have blamed it on his mother, who had fed him a lot of beans his whole life—he suspected that they had been of that variety Jack had used to grow his beanstalk—but how could he fault her for always keeping him fed, and also for her nearly constant labor to sew clothes for him.
Anyway, it was probably inevitable that regular humans would eventually find his presence a little irritating. No one really likes to look up to taller people; it’s intimidating, and most do so with at least a little envy, as well. And when the taller person just keeps growing taller—well, it can bring out the worst. Just ask Gulliver. He lost his job in the steel mill, even though he doubled for the cranes when they were down.
“Igor, there’s just no place here for a man of your—ahem—size anymore,” the bosses told him politely. As time went on, Igor found it harder and harder to take life in the city. This was especially true when he grew tall enough to look into windows of three-story buildings. He didn’t mean to be a “peeping Tom,” of course, but they always perceived that this was what he was doing.
He wasn’t the only one who found it difficult for him to live there. He got complaints from the Police Department, the Mayor, and all the fire companies about the damage being done to the streets and the buildings as he thumped his way along. He was doing his best to avoid smashing any cars or buses—to say nothing of the people scurrying away from him. He would smile and try to appear friendly, but it didn’t seem to help.
So, he moved into the country, and camped among the tall pines. But soon his head was above those, and strange things happened—like eagles making nests on his shoulders. This was downright irksome! Then, when a committee from the city came out to suggest that he shouldn’t ever stand up, because commuter jets were having a difficulty avoiding him on their approach to the airport, he decided to go farther away. Life was very difficult in the high mountains. For one thing, it was very cold and Igor’s clothes were in tatters. His poor mother had passed away, and there was no one to make him clothes any more. He’d catch a deer once in a while for a meal, but he was never one for raw meat, and how could he dare start a campfire?
Eventually Igor did stop growing, but by then he was looking at the stars fondly, wondering if there was anywhere else he could go. His head was lost in the clouds. So now, we hear the final chapter in the sad life of Igor. He walks into the city one more time, kind of as a farewell, and kind of boiling about how they have treated him all his life. He thinks of many ways in which he could have helped other humans, because of his great size and strength, if they had given him the chance. He reaches down one hand toward the Empire State Building, thinking of ripping off the top section, to show how he felt about it. But no, how could he hurt anyone? Letting bygones be bygones, he continues on his way—his way being across the continent, and then into the Pacific Ocean. If he isn’t wanted, he will just find one of those very deep crevices that oceanographers talk about. He wades, and wades, and wades, and finally he is up to his waist.
“This is ridiculous!” Igor says. So he just sits down, bringing his head, above the eyebrows, level with the water. And this is how the latest island of Hawaii, which they name “Igoraland,” is formed. His bald head needed to be planted, to be sure. After tons and tons of soil and many boat loads of palm trees are brought in, Igor finally has made his contribution to society, as well as a landmark. And there are no buildings on this island. It is a garden paradise, far better than all the other islands.
Thank you, Igor.
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By CC
In the double champagne bottle backflip competition, unskilled men predominated. The unskilled were rounded up by selective testing from the rural areas surrounding town. Those who worked on farms or with livestock were culled relentlessly for the amusement of the crowd, who loved seeing their energetic backflips into 3 feet of water near the shore. A small skiff nearby towed the bodies away, and, following an energetic afternoon of back flipping, shoals of small, drunken fish wallowed in the surf late into the evening.
Raoul and Melinda enjoyed the back flipping. Sometimes the wind caught the champagne droplets before they fell into the sea and left a delicious tang of booze floating through the air. Or so Raoul thought as he licked his lips and searched his pockets for the flask he brought with him everywhere. Melinda fiddled with her phone, preferring to watch nail art clips on Facebook than the stupid rubes breaking their necks in the surf.
Later that night, as the scent of jasmine floated through their open windows and palm leaves rustled in the night wind, Melinda looked up from her phone and said, “Raoul, I’m bored.” Raoul looked over at her with a slight frisson of fear. He would have to come up with yet more entertainments if he wanted to keep her! He winced thinking how she just sat there staring at her phone no matter where he took her. She was obsessed with that phone. He sat wondering about this for a few minutes.
Then suddenly it came to him: She was cheating on him! He leaped up and ran to the kitchen, where he selected a large carving knife from the block before returning to the living room.
While carnage ran its course in their little apartment, outside along the shore small fish belched and woke in a groggy stupor. One of them turned to the other and said, “We’ve been poisoned. The bastards.”
“We need to counterattack. But let’s get healthy first,” replied the other.
As they wobbled back out to sea, the others followed to let the ocean soothe their headaches while they plotted their revenge. But it is a good thing they never followed through on their plans, as they would surely have been killed and eaten.
After the last back flipping contest, food production on the island took a blow from which it never recovered. The population soon declined to 20, and within a generation they were all gone.
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