Session January 25, 2020

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When you walked in you were so tired you could hardly speak

By RC

Screwtape was making his rounds, which he always did soon after new arrivals; before they proceeded on through the check-in line, they rested a while in green pastures by still waters. There was one particular person whom he was more interested in seeing, because of what was in store for him. His name was Jonas, and he had been a soldier in life. 

Screwtape went down the green sward toward the pool, where most of the people hung out, quenching their thirst (it was a very warm, sunny day), and eventually he saw Jonas lounging under the shade of a tree. 

“Hey there, Jonas,” he called out as he approached. “You don’t know me, but I’m Screwtape.”

“Screwtape? That’s a funny name,” Jonas replied. “Say, I don’t know how I got here. I was…I was…oh yes, I was in the middle of scalping an Indian at the pueblo in New Mexico. We had a grand time there, I can tell you. They were running like rats. But how’d I get here—wherever this is?”

“That’s a long story, Jonas,” Screwtape said. I can tell you this, when you walked in you were so tired you could hardly speak. I understand why you might have no recall. You had a wound in your back, by the way. I think it was from what they call a spear down there.”

“Come to think of it, I do remember a sudden sharp pain in my back as I was bending over the redskin.”

“Well then, that’s the explanation. But I’ve come to usher you into your reward.”

“My reward? You mean this is heaven?”

“Of course. What reward did you expect for slaughtering all those—“redskins,” did you call them?”

“Yeah. I don’t know, but something good, even though I only did what any red-blooded American would have done. Those people are stopping our progress west.”

“Right. Well, we have a grand surprise for you, Jonas, and it’s right through that door.” Screwtape pointed to a door which was barely visible as an outline against the sky at the top of the nearest little hill. 

“There?” Jonas pointed.

“Exactly. If you walk through there, you’ll get everything that’s coming to you.”

“Well, what’s to wait for?” Jonas said reflectively as he got up with ease. It seemed that he had regained all his stamina. It was then that he looked at himself, still dressed in his dusty and torn cavalry uniform, and asked, “Say, aren’t I supposed to get something new—you know, like white clothes, and all that?”

Everything you need for your new existence will be provided on the other side of the door,” Screwtape replied.

“Well, okay, I’ll see you later,” and Jonas started eagerly up the hill.

One of Screwtape’s assistants had come up and Screwtape turned to him. “This is the part I love,” he said. “When they step through that door, thinking about what great things they’re going to get. It’s rich. Just rich, especially the contrast with what happens before.” While he said this, they both glanced toward the door, which the soldier was just stepping through. A tiny flame of fire could just be seen beyond, but it was too late for the soldier to turn back—even had there been somewhere to go.

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Then I heard a lot of whispering behind me.

by CT

My daughter Alice and I sat in a family restaurant, waiting for our lunch to arrive.

Alice looked around, patted my arm, and said, “Look, Mama, look at the birdie!”

I glanced where she pointed.  Sure enough, a parakeet sat on an elderly man’s shoulder, bobbing its head to the canned background music.  I smiled at Alice, and said, “Cute, isn’t he?”

I turned back to my new People magazine to continue the article about the royal family.

Then I heard a lot of whispering behind me, plus a few snickers of laughter.  Beside me, Alice jerked.

There she was- shoulders scrunched to her ears, eyes wide and terrified, and her mouth open to scream.  On her head sat the nonchalant parakeet.  She yelled; he startled, chalked, and flew back to his master.

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If money were no object, I’d stay in England a very long time.

By MD

She’d traveled to England to enroll in a course in Literary Grammar. The teacher, Professor Leander, was a famed academic in his field and admittance to his course was quite selective. She was surprised, actually, to receive the letter of acceptance. She raided her bank account to pay for the trip, leaving only enough money in it to avoid closing the account altogether. The airfare and the tuition for the course came close to rendering her penniless, but she figured it was money well spent.

On the first day of class, she arrived early and found herself alone with the famed professor.  She introduced herself; he greeted her with a scrutinizing gaze, his eyebrows knotted on his forehead, his mouth pursed in a scowl. She smiled at him with what she hoped was a winning expression.

“How are you enjoying this London weather?” he asked her.  “Coming here from California,” his voice dripped with disdain when he said her home state’s name, “you must be bemoaning the perpetual rain here.”

“Oh no,” she gushed, still hoping to gain his favor. “If money was no object, I’d stay in England a very long time.”

Professor Leander’s face wrinkled into an even uglier visage. Loudly he cleared his throat and pinioned her with his poisonous gaze. “You are an ignorant slut,” he said. “You are not qualified to take my course and you must leave immediately.”

Shocked beyond belief she asked, “But why?”

“Because, you stupid American, everyone who takes my class must speak the Queen’s English. And you just broke the rule concerning the verb to be in an unreal conditional even when the subject is singular.” His voice oozed with condescension. “As anyone with any knowledge of basic English knows, what you should have said was ‘If money WERE no object, I’d stay in England a very long time.’ “ 

“But. . .”

“No buts about it!” he roared.  “Get out of here.”

She obeyed, but lack of funds meant she did stay in England a very long time. Until, in fact, she died and was buried in a pauper’s field near a small wayside chapel. 

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Among a big enough group of people of any age somebody’s going to have a screw loose. 

By CC

Among a big enough group of people of any age somebody’s going to have a screw loose. Maybe even two of them.

The Twin Pines Senior Center’s annual bus outing to Ensenada always took place on February 14^th. Usually three or four couples and twenty widows filled the old tour bus to capacity. But when, one magical February day, Tim Hornfeld signed up as the only widower, the tour sold out in fifteen minutes instead of the customary month. 

Tim was tanned and fit and smiled a lot. The widows hung over their seats watching him. He seemed happily self contained. One widow, Lara Boneshall, whispered I think he killed his wife. I saw it in the newspaper.

Debbie Marshall’s eyes widened in surprise but then quickly narrowed. I had him marked as a psychopath from the first moment I saw him, she muttered under her breath.

The whispers flew all along the bus, but near the front sat a well groomed recently widowed woman who prided herself on logic. Julia Foster wasn’t like the rest of them. She worked assiduously to keep her stomach flat and weight down. She wore expensive makeup and simple jewelry that spoke of wealth and class. She had an eye on Tim, who seemed to value health and fitness as much as she did. There would be no contest here.

When the long bus trip finally ended and the rush to the restroom was over, the ladies staggered out of the concrete bathroom, limp with relief. Then suddenly their heads swiveled as one, watching Tim stroll down the beach hand in hand with Julia Foster. She had no idea of the danger she was in! They decided to get a burrito at a restaurant across the street and talk it over. 

By evening the widows had returned to the bus with their bags of souvenirs and trinkets, but Tim and Julia were still missing. Heads nodding sagely, the widows grimly acknowledged that their suspicious had been well founded. 

The bus eventually had to leave without the missing couple. The Mexican authorities were solicitous but the widows could tell that these cops knew a killer by scent. Julia’s body washed up a week later, but Tim was never found.  

The widows of Twin Peaks went back to their old ways, painting watercolors, gardening and gossiping. Every now and then they would talk about Julia and Tim, but eventually they lost interest in the subject. The annual bus tour shifted to Las Vegas, where everyone had a blast.

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Yet some cloud persists and blots the sight.
by BG

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Her purpose was intentionally ambiguous.
by TNT

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by RM

December 28, 2019

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For better or worse, we have let our guard down.

By RD

Ivan was happy to be in the group—he really was—even though he was always the one to set up the rocket and retrieve it after the launch. He believed in the “rocket’s red glare,” and all that, but he also wanted to continue to enjoy life to a ripe old age. 

He was not “freaked out” at all, mind you, only cautious and concerned. Really. But everyone should take the same risks. And that is why it rankled him when someone took his photograph one day while he held a rocket and later printed “get freaked out by this” across the photo. Did he look freaked out?

Ivan didn’t even know how it was that he got mixed up in this patriot group. They were building rockets and stockpiling weapons against the coming conflagration, the certain break down of civilization—what people were calling WTSHTF. He didn’t really understand the allusion but the idea seemed good. Be prepared. It wasn’t a very big rocket but it was part of the whole defense plan, so he continued doing it. And he was very good at it, making sure each time that the launch would be successful and everyone would be safe. They had so far attained a few thousand feet of lift.

Nevertheless, he was overjoyed when someone else stepped up to relieve him and not only retrieve the rocket after the next test but place it on the launching pad beforehand. So, when the rocket was lit and did not go in the normal direction—straight up—but veered to the side abruptly after climbing a hundred feet or so and started back down, he was not immediately concerned. But when it headed directly toward his group, while at the same time the guy who’d placed it there ran in the other direction, he was sure that this was the end. They had been infiltrated. “For better or worse, we have let our guard down,” he said to himself just before being blasted to smithereens. 

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In some lights it was coral, in some lights it was pink.

By CC

It was a good day for the seagull. He had found French fries on the beach, and some mayo-drenched lettuce scraps in the garbage. Then there was a blue M&M that tasted good even if he did gulp it whole. But the pinnacle of his day was the remains of a beer that had spilled out of a tipped can into a little puddle. He slurped it up with gusto and hopped sideways for a little while to celebrate. Then it was time to sleep it off. He flew away, wobbling a little, looking for a perch.

Tom Tukins was drunk, too. He was sitting on a bench watching the sun set, a bb gun laid across his lap. He liked to come out here with a beer and shoot seagulls and other useless vermin. But he had been too busy drinking to do much shooting.

The seagull saw something that might be a nice perch. It was one of those monuments that people erected everywhere, obviously thinking of the comfort of their feathered overlords. He was always surprised at how many of these perches there were. Clearly his kind were highly regarded. This one was nice in the sunset. In some lights it was coral, in some lights it was pink. He liked it, and settled down to rest.

Tom looked at the seagull and fumbled for his bb gun, which fell off his lap and discharged into a trash can nearby. Everyone looked towards him, so he left the gun on the ground and drank some more beer until he fell over on the bench and began snoring.

The man and the bird slept peacefully most of the night. By the time Tom woke, the bird was gone, and he was able to retrieve his bb gun and walk home in the early dawn. He liked how the world looked then – in some lights it was coral, in some lights it was pink.  

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In medieval bestiaries, the salamander was said to live in fire.

By RM

Waiting on submission

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When faced with a challenge, ask your friends for advice.

By BG

My grandmother was an amazing woman. She was an artist; Cooper Union, Class of 1920. I have always been impressed… she was a college woman so many years ago. Her father before her had also been an artist, so she was not only schooled in art, but I guess you could say she was also born into the art world too. Her father was a portrait painter, and he and his family went where the elite wanted him to paint their pictures. Consequently, travelling was also a major part of my grandmother’s life. 

At my grandmother’s house, her attic had been a phenomenal place to explore when I was a kid…paintings she did, paintings he did, paintings and other art the family had collected in the various places they’d been. Big steamer trunks were what they packed their things in as they went from place to place by ocean liners in a time way before air travel. Some had tattered decals giving hints of places they’d travelled. I know they were in Europe when WWI broke out. And they also went to Cuba in a time way before Castro even thought of taking over. My grandmother went other places too after the time the family had travelled. She told many stories which were fascinating…wish I’d written some of them down. 

Lamentably, she is gone now, and I am back in the attic alone cleaning out all the marvelous things that have been there all these years. There are many things I can take to the antiques market and some things I can donate to museums. Then, there are items I just want to keep…but then think, should I or should I not hold on to them. There is some stuff that I think I should send back to the far off land that it came from. A piece in particular, I think, may cause international distress. I guess I’d better hold on to it. Gee Whiz, though, I worry I could even get into trouble. I have researched it, prayed about it, and have not come up with the solution. So…when faced with a challenge, ask your friends for advice….What do you think?

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The distance was not so great; one could easily accomplish the trip in four days.

By TT

Waiting on submission

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The best thing you can do is get back on track the next day.

By MD

When Shen found the egg under his home, he wasn’t sure what might hatch from it. He was hoping for a chicken or maybe even a peacock: food or frivolity for his family, two noble aspirations for a husband.  With this hope in mind, he gently gathered up the egg and created a nest under lights for warmth and growth. 

His wife was skeptical. “That’s not any kind of bird’s egg,” she told him.  “It’s more likely a snake egg, maybe even a cobra.” She shuddered. “Get rid of it.”

Shen pretended to obey but he simply couldn’t abandon his dream of chicken for dinner or a peacock for entertainment and security. So hid the homemade nest and waited. And waited. And waited, sneaking away from home like a shifty swindler, checking the secret nest for signs of life.

Finally, one day Shen arrived at the nest to find the shell cracked open and a small, slimy, shivering lizard huddled in the straw. It was ugly, it was unexpected, but his heart melted as he nestled it in his hands, then snuggled it in his pants pocket. He knew instinctively his wife would never approve of his keeping this tiny reptile for a pet—so he concealed it from her.

Surprisingly, in a short time, the lizard grew and grew and grew. It became impossible to conceal. “This is no ordinary lizard,” he told himself. “This is a komodo dragon!” He was right.

When his wife discovered it—the by-now giant lizard had lumbered into the kitchen one day seeking food—she screamed and beat the animal over the head with a skillet. The stunned komodo dragon stumbled from the house, making its way across the beach and into the water.  That’s where Shen found him, the oversized reptile floundering in the waves.

When the lizard saw Shen, he advanced out of the water toward him but the man knew it could never work. Reluctantly, he grabbed the komodo dragon by the tail and attempted to haul him back to the water, hoping he would swim away and avoid further confrontation.  Shen was unsuccessful. 

The reptile followed him back to his home. Sheepishly, Shen approached his wife, smiling in what he hoped was an endearing way, hoping the woman would find his and his dragon’s charms irresistible. This time, she beat her husband over the head with her skillet before starting in on the giant lizard.

“Don’t’ worry,” he told her between blows. “I’ll keep trying to coax him into the water. Starting tomorrow. You know as well as I do, when your plans fail, the best thing you can do is to get back on track the next day.” 

“You’d better be right,” she replied. “Because you know as well as I do, I have plenty more skillets in this kitchen,” she brandished one of them threateningly toward both man and beast, “and I’m not afraid to use them.”