December 18th, 2009
Angry Eve, Keith Howard
This is a short story from my friend Anthony Barker from Portland, Oregon
In a small village in Tuscany, in the time of the condottiere, an old farmer lived with his young daughter, Gina. She was uncommonly beautiful, dreamy, tenderhearted, and absurdly innocent. She loved small animals, and turned her father’s lambs into pets. She hoped to enter a convent, for she thought it would be like living in a Fra Angelico painting.
One day a handsome squire met her tending the sheep. He soon discovered her trusting nature and persuaded her that he was an angel, come to give her a vision of paradise. She was a little doubtful, but he was so handsome, so kind, so gentle and reassuring that she finally agreed. He showed her, as he had promised, but in the morning he left her, forgetting the other promises he had made.
She longed for him as spring became summer, and wondered as her waist began to swell. The old man recognized the symptoms and in a furious rage forced her to tell her story. He was an old fashioned sort. “Whore!” he screamed, in response to her explanation. He called her other unpleasant names as well, and taking a stick, drove her out of the house.
She had no other place to go, and being suddenly made aware of her degenerate character, she hardly dared show herself, or seek any comfort from her neighbors. In this sad condition she made her way along the road into a forest.
People from her village rarely went into this forest because, in the middle of it, there was a small house occupied by three old crones. The villagers were not afraid of old women; but these particular old women didn’t seem to have any relatives, and as far as anybody could remember, there never was a time when they hadn’t lived in the middle of the forest. You can’t be too careful. Everybody stayed away.
Nevertheless, the girl found herself in front of their cottage just as night was falling. She was so tired and hungry, and the late summer evening was so chilly, that she could not imagine that she could be worse off. She knocked on the door. One of the ancient hags opened it and asked what she wanted. The girl was badly frightened although the woman was so frail and insubstantial as to be hardly more than a vision.
The girl blurted out her story, “My name is Gina and I live in the village. Last spring a handsome boy (he said he was an angel but he was just a squire in one of the armies) seduced me, and now I’m a whore and I forgot what else, and I don’t know where to go, and I’m going to have a baby.”
The old woman sighed (perhaps she had heard this story before.) She told the girl to come inside and get warm. The other two old women were kind enough, in a practical sort of way, bringing some soup and bread. They didn’t seem to find her story very remarkable, or even interesting. They said that since she didn’t have any place else to go she might as well stay and help take care of the animals until her child was born. They gave her a couple of blankets and made her comfortable in the straw of the stable.
She stayed with them all through the fall and early winter, helping with their cleaning and baking, doing farm chores, cutting wood for the fire and generally keeping busy and useful. In the evenings she was so tired she could barely shed a tear before she fell sound asleep.
Her time came in midwinter. The snow lay deep in the little clearing, and the animals crowded into the shed with her to keep warm. The old ladies helped, and with the usual turmoil and pain she gave birth to a beautiful little daughter. The three crones cleaned the baby, wrapped her in toweling and put her to nurse. Gina named her baby ‘Bianca’.
Who knows how word of such things gets around? You’d think that nothing could be more obscure than a birth in the middle of the forest, especially a forest where nobody cared to go (although they weren’t afraid of three old women.) However, it was only a day or two before everyone had heard of it. One brave and curious granny came out to see, bringing some baby clothes that had belonged to her grandchildren but which still had plenty of wear left in them. One of the grandchildren came with her. He brought a little toy. They were both amazed at how exceptionally beautiful the child was. They also marveled at the mother, who was so sad. They left their gifts and went back to the village carrying the news of the lovely child and her mother.
Needless to say there were lots of arguments. The villagers split into factions. The kindlier, more sympathetic (and curious) thought it was a great shame that such a pretty girl should have been seduced and abandoned by that cruel young soldier. Something ought to be done, they said, to get her out of the stable into decent surroundings where (who knows) she might yet attract a husband. The others, including her father, thought she had gotten off easy considering how she had carried on with that out-of-town scalawag. Nothing could be more suitable, they argued, than that she and her brat should be living on the scraps and leavings of three old hags who were probably witches. They said that no decent man, or sensible village, would have anything to do with any of them.
By coincidence there was a supernova just after the baby was born. The entire sky was lit by a star as bright as the full moon. It was so bright that it was visible during the day as well. This upset the villagers even more. According to their position in the dispute some of them blamed the girl and her baby, while others thought the blame should fall on her father, and others suggested the soldier. A few blamed the village itself. There was no priest to resolve these quarrels, but a wise old woman, who was related to nearly everybody, said it would be prudent to take something to the mother and child. After all, it was nearly Christmas. Perhaps it would help; and it certainly couldn’t do any harm. Also they would all get a chance to see the girl, the baby, and the three hags.
So, in the eerie light of the supernova they straggled into the forest. They continued to bicker, but they had dressed in their Sunday clothes, and many of them were carrying little gifts of cakes, fresh milk, candles, eggs or such stuff as they had to welcome a newborn, or possibly to appease a witch.
When they reached the clearing the old hut had disappeared. Only the stable remained, bathed in the stellar glow. Inside, the girl sat on the straw, subdued and melancholy—but Bianca was as alert and inquisitive as the animals.
The villagers stared quietly at the girl. They too found her beautiful and touching; but they were not entirely at ease. For one thing, where were the old hags? The villagers looked around nervously, some of them crossing themselves, or crossing their fingers against the evil eye.
Well they might, for at this moment the three old crones stepped out of the stall next to Bianca’s manger. They still wore their hooded gowns, but it seemed that they had been transformed. Seeing the crowd outside the stable, each of them pushed back her hood. They were not old women at all, but beautiful queens wearing golden crowns. Their hag dresses were just an outer covering which they removed as they knelt by Bianca’s nest in the hay.
The first queen was dressed in a brocaded gown with gold threads and a pattern of fig leaves. She spoke. “I am Eve, Queen of the Garden and Mother of all.” Reaching into her bodice she brought forth a jewel, shaped like an apple and formed of a single ruby. “Bianca, I bring you the gift of self awareness, the beginning of knowledge. It was the gift that made us all human. Of course, men curse me for it.” Bianca reached for the apple and smiled.
The second queen, dressed in a graceful linen toga, spoke, “Bianca, I am Helen, Queen of Troy. I bring you this mirror of electrum and silver, symbol of feminine beauty, which you will have in full measure. Men will desire you for your beauty, but blame you for it. That’s life.” Bianca saw her face in the mirror and laughed.
When the third queen removed her hag’s cloak the villagers were amazed by her dress of celestial blue, lit by stars. She ignored them and spoke to the baby, “Bianca, I am Mary, Queen of Heaven.” The villagers fell to their knees. “It was I who made the glory of God manifest in the baby Jesus, and I make every birth divine. Though you are an outcast, Bianca, and an orphan, you shall share in the Holy Spirit as fully as any.” She picked up Bianca and kissed her. She also touched Bianca’s mother and blessed her.
Now the villagers were filled with an entirely different sort of fear. Some of the men, including Gina’s father, trembled before the three great queens. Others, who were idlers and scoffers, were afraid because they had come to the forest to mock. Even those who had been kind were nervous for fear they might not have been kind enough, or soon enough—they wondered if eggs and winter apples, hand-me-down dresses and ribbons were fine enough for a child who had been blessed with self knowledge, beauty and grace.
Most frightened of all was a young man in the back of the crowd. It was the young soldier, Angelo, held by two of Gina’s uncles, each with a large cudgel. One uncle shouted, “We’ve caught the rascal, Holy Mother, and brought him to you.” He shoved Angelo to the front of the crowd and into the dirt next to Bianca’s bed. “Judge him, Majesties, Queens of Wisdom, Beauty and Mercy. What shall his penalty be? Just say the word and I’ll pummel him.”
The Queen of Heaven interceded for the poor squire, “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she said. “Angelo, you have offended me greatly”. I require that you ask forgiveness of my daughter, Gina. Your penance will be whatever she demands of you.’
So, Angelo rose from the dirt and knelt before Gina and begged pardon. He was wise enough not to give any excuses. By a miracle, Bianca said her first word, “Da!”
And Gina, still basically ingenuous, but slightly more prudent, said, “Oh Angelo, I love you. If you’ll marry me I’ll forgive you.” Angelo sat down in the straw with his arm around Gina, and with Bianca in his lap. All of them glowed in the light of the supernova.
The villagers gathered around the family and offered their presents. The village fiddler played music suitable for festivals and weddings. Everyone had a good time. The queens had resumed their dark dress and withdrawn to the side. For a moment they watched the celebration.
Eve was thoughtful, “Awareness is one thing,” she said, “Wisdom is another. You need to have a little experience.”
Helen replied, “She’ll probably be sorry later, but maybe she would have been sorrier if he hadn’t come back. I often ask myself if men are worth the trouble.”
Mary sighed, “It’s no wonder there are so few miracles these days. It’s hard enough to arrange a happy ending.”
Helen of Troy
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December 5th, 2009
A short story today from my friend Michelle Witte. Michelle works as an associate editor with nonfiction publisher Gibbs Smith. In her free time, Michelle writes young adult fiction. She lives in Utah. You can visit Michelle’s site at Belletrinsic
Patience knelt beside the shattered pots, barely noticing the blood trickling down her neck. Broken—all of them—her beautiful pots lying on the scuffed linoleum, right there with her decision to let him live. He’d done it. He’d gone and broken his word.
She thought of her mother. Beautiful. Only word to describe her. Perfect to anyone but her own child. Slap here. Curse there. Anger everywhere. But what a show she put on for the neighbors. Nobody could compete with Mama for acting abilities. Star performer she’d been all her life, even to the man she’d married and later murdered. Oh, she didn’t hold the gun to his head, but she was certainly present in his thoughts as he pulled the trigger. Like mother like daughter.
They’d named her Patience because it was the virtue neither possessed but both wanted for the other. So why not burden a child with unreal expectations before she even took a breath? They were like that, mama and papa. Wanting what they’d never have, what they were never willing to give.
Patience learned early the importance of plotting. A good ploy was not to be outdone. Take time to get it right because there was no second chance with vengeance. The scar shaped like the old clothes iron on Patience’s thigh was testament enough to that.
So Patience would wait and plan.
All was clean when he returned next morning. Who knew what hovel he’d slept in and with who? Didn’t matter.
Skin was puffy round the X he’d carved in Patience’s left temple. Not deep enough to kill, but enough to brand her for life. His. His mark. Like them old cowboys used to sign, he’d said. X for a name. X for land. X for property. Patience was property, and she wasn’t to forget it.
Breakfast was cold by the time he’d washed up. Threw it to the dog and demanded another. Of course Patience complied, because she was the epitome of her name. That’s why he wanted her, after all. Patient, submissive. Perfect woman.
He never would realize how perfect she was for him.
He was dashing the day they met. Leaning against his truck, smoking one of them ever-present cigarettes. She hated the things, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stand it for a pretty face. Him blond, tan, good-looking. Her short, dark, awkward. Mama said she’d never amount to much, but boy, when he looked at her that day, she felt like somethin’.
Why she believed all them lies, she’d never know. Women did stupid things in lust.
She’d always wanted a baby, a chance to do right by some small creature. That baby would be raised up proper, loving mother and all.
It wasn’t like Patience would get a chance with another man. At thirty-two, she’d been lucky to get a whistle from the local drunk. So when a luscious stranger walked into town—no past, no future—she took what she could. Patience weren’t no fool. She knew she was ugly, but that didn’t matter to him. He just wanted a warm body to keep him fed and clothed, someone to dominate. She could deal with the rest, so long as he gave her a baby.
Baby came eventually. Three months early after he punched her in the gut during a drunken fight. Couldn’t do nothin’, those doctors said. Dead before they reached the hospital. They let her hold that baby. Soft but cold all over. Tiny fingers and toes, each with its own nail. Beautiful. Turns out ugly mamas can have pretty babies.
Little thing didn’t even mind her crying all over him. Just laid there, still as could be. Perfect child. Poor thing couldn’t even take revenge. His mama would have to do it for him.
Patience made money only way she knew how—throwing pots. Not at people, as the fool man did, but with a wheel. Same way her mama taught her. Only good thing she got from mama. Couldn’t get her looks, but she certainly got the talent with clay.Sold them pots down off the highway in a little stand for them rich tourists. They always wanted a piece of the land. Let ’em have it, for all she cared. She had more important things to deal with.
Clean up this sty, he’d say. You’re a filthy pig. Who knows why I bother with you. Each punctuated with a slap.He bothered because no one else would have him. Not for long, and certainly not for free. Soon no one would have to bother with him at all.
Days passed. The X became infected, but there was no money for the doctor since he’d destroyed all the pots she’d made to sell that week. No money for food, neither, but that wasn’t new. She’d lived through hunger. Besides, it kept her figure. There was always enough for beer, though. Beer and cigarettes. Patience didn’t partake, but that only meant her money went to one man’s portion instead of two. A man could live on those things. At least he could.
Patience, now. She lived on hope. What hope did she have? None, really, but the hope of having hope. That had to be enough.
Potter’s clay stuck to her hands, coating the undersides of fingernails. She liked to scratch designs out with those nails, think of raking them through his eyes—and other unmentionables. Those rich people liked her style of pottery. Violent. Dark. Carnal. They liked anything that made them feel superior. Buy a scratched-up pot from a poor woman. Tell the story to friends. Changed a woman’s life with a measly twenty bucks.Patience was worth more than that. But who would buy madness in the form of a pot for more than fifty dollars? Madness comes cheap, it does.
Madness. Genius. Same thing. The starving artist in his loft was genius, but the impoverished potter in her trailer was mad.Now she was mad, but not how they thought. Patience, though, she could wait like no man. She would bide her time. Then they would all feel the force of her madness.
Mixing clay in the trough soothed her nerves.
He was gone. Called his mama and told her he was leaving the crazy witch. Packed up his truck.Never got far. Police came, said they’d found the rusted hunk of metal off the highway, broken down. No phone? No message? Dehydration, maybe, or rattlesnake. Coulda been anything. No body, though, so they’d searched.
Days. Weeks. Months. None heard from the man. That was all he’d ever be to her. Him. Didn’t deserve a name. Not for all he’d done.
Patience was a free woman now, but she didn’t want freedom if it meant sympathy from the neighbors. He was cruel. They knew it as well as her, but they were all cruel here. Drunk men. Submissive women. That’s the way things were done.
Not for Patience.
Sympathy cards came. They went in the trash. Flowers showed up on the porch. They wilted. Patience had no need for pity when she felt none herself. She could survive on her own without a man. She’d done it before, would do it again.
Exquisite. Never had such a fancy word described anything about her, but them folks with money said it ’bout them new pots she’d made. Since he’d disappeared, her work had far outshined everything else along that stretch of old dusty road.
Red, they were. How could she get such a beautiful color on a pot? The marks, so violent. Gruesome, almost. But they bought them. Gave them as gifts. Told their friends about the genius potter off the highway. She made her money. Blood money, it was too.
Dead men’s lips tell no tales, but her pots did. Red stories and brown ones. And, mixed with the right clay, very dark and black ones. But that’s what people wanted, so it’s what Patience gave ’em.
Nothing, however, was sweeter than seeing those bits of him leaving the stand each day as they traveled to the homes of the wealthy, tainting their perfect worlds with violence.
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November 29th, 2009
This short story is by my writing pal, Heikki Hietala, lecturer in IT in Helsinki, Finland. Heikki also writes in English, stories full of a natural warmth and humanity. He chops firewood in his spare time.
It was a hot, humid, overcast August night, pretty dark even for Finland. Since it was 3am, not much was happening. I sat in the reception of the camping site I was working at for the summer, together with my co-supervisor, friend, and night shift specialist Jore. He was bouncing a golf ball against the floor and then the wall, and catching it. He counted out the throws. “Seven-forty-two… seven-forty-three… seven-forty-four…”
I was arranging the traveler identification forms that would be taken to the police in the morning, since the police had told us in no uncertain terms that they preferred them alphabetically by surname. The third slip in a stack of three copies only had a faint imprint of the information written by the travelers, and it took all the movable illumination we had in the reception to see the data. Three lamps on the desk made life hot for me.
“Eight-twenty-yy… eight-twenty-one…”
The defeatist mood of the night shift was worsened by the fact that the cashier girls had denied the supervisors access to their music cassette collection for the nights. This was because our smoothest operator had successfully courted the shapeliest of the cashiers, only to drop her at the sight of a new sport coupe model among the gardener girls. The battalion suffered from the action of a single soldier.
“Nine-forty-one… nine-forty-two… damn!” Jore said as the ball bounced off his knuckles and rolled under the sorry excuse of a fridge we had for keeping our food two degrees cooler than the ambient air. Rather than brave the ogres living under the fridge, he picked a new ball from our depleted minigolf stock.
The only cassette we had was better than nocturnal Finnish radio programming AD 1987. Still, playing the same plastic pop song every 60 minutes should be proscribed in the Geneva conventions. Jore scanned the pitiful set of channels in the sea of static, only to drop the chase in desperation. “There’s only talk available, on farming and such, and then there’s last week’s football analysis”, he said. He started bouncing his golfball.
I needed a bit of fresh air, and as it was on the hour, I went out and did the rounds of the site, checking that the saunas were locked, all boats were drawn up far enough on the beach, and the gates were locked. I loved walking the beat. The fullness of the summer was upon us but none of the melodrama of autumn had fallen yet. I knew every rock along the paths, every hole ripped into the perimeter fence by enterprising bottle collectors and all the nooks and crannies our site had for impromptu lovers and their quick snuggles.
All the locks were in place, and nothing out of the ordinary was to be found along the beat. As I wound my way back up to the reception, I saw a beat-up old Toyota Corolla parked at the far corner of the reception parking lot. It wasn’t there when I left. It was just within the tired yellow streetlight’s cone. There was one man in it, and he was watching me as I went into the reception.
“What’s with the Toyo there?” I asked.
Jore looked surprised. “What Toyota?”
“That one” I said and took him to the back room which was dark and only had a row of windows at the top of the wall. We stood on the sofa which had seen better days and peeked out.
Jore said, “Never seen that before.” He dropped down to sit on the sofa.
“Some supervisor you are too,” I said and went back to the front with Jore in tow. ”We got to check him out.”
I grabbed the gear, which meant a can of mace and a rubber truncheon, usually referred to as the youth guidance counselor, and then I glanced out of the window into the null-color neon lit front of the reception. A long shadow preceded the Toyota man as he sauntered up to our service windows. My first thought was one of relief, as he was skinny and small, but at that time, one always thinks of possible concealed weapons. Jore and I both slipped the mace cans under the desk for quick access, and opened our windows. After all, we were there to serve prospective campers.
The guy slithered up to Jore’s window and we got our first good look at him. He appeared very gaunt. A five o’clock shadow looked more like a five days’ shadow. His hair was worn in a greasy fountain directed up from the lobes and then down and back towards the neck, and a barber was sorely needed to make it look remotely human. He was in his early thirties, as far as I could tell.
Still, the oddest thing was his attire. He was dressed in a worn-out national costume, of which there are dozens of local subtypes, but I couldn’t tell where he was claiming to be from. National costumes in Finland are worn by three groups of people: the Romani minority, retired teachers when reciting the Kalevala or attending a country festival, and finally, folk dancers.
This guy looked definitely mainstream, not Romani, who take pride in the way they dress. He didn’t strike us as a dancer of any sort, and teaching was right out. Jore gave me the slanted look with the notched-up eyebrow. There was an awkward pause as both parties pondered which one should open the channel. He beat us to it with a “Hello” so muted we hardly heard it.
“Hello. What can we do for you?” Jore asked the guy. “If you’d like to come and camp for the night, we’re sorry, but the site is closed. We could let you in, if you pitch your tent right behind the reception and keep the silence”, he suggested.
The guy pivoted his head on the top of his skinny windpipe. I’d never seen a bigger Adam’s apple, and it lolled up and down as he prepared to speak. It looked like he was swallowing a yo-yo.
“I’m not here for camping.” He put his hands into his jacket pockets, deep enough to take in half the forearms.
“Well, in that case, you can stay in your car until the morning and we won’t charge you for the night. Some folks sleep on the parking lot, and we don’t mind. Just keep quiet, will you?” Jore must have thought the case was about to be closed.
The guy shot his line and caught us both by surprise. “I get impulses.”
“Come again?” I asked. For the first time he noted me. I didn’t like his eyes. The gaze didn’t come from the eyes, it started deeper than the usual retina level.
“I get im-pul-ses.”
Jore gave me a hand signal under the desk to grab the mace in case things turned sour. “What kind of impulses would that be, pal?”
“Criminal activity impulses.”
I looked at Jore and he looked at me. No one had told me of such impulses before.
“How so?” he asked.
“When there’s a crime being committed, I get impulses. They’re like electric shocks. If I’m close to the crime scene and the criminal activity, I get them real strong.The yo-yo resumed its oscillation and the guy went silent.
Under the desk, Jore motioned for me to dip in, so I did. “So, what do you do when you get these impulses?”
The guy moved towards me and took a stance halfway between our windows. “I used to call the cops. But that was too hard on me. The cops would always ask me to take them to the crime scene. But as I got close to it, the impulses got too hard to take.”
I felt sorry for the little guy. He was obviously the result of cuts in the mental health sector. Impulses… yeah right. “So what do you do these days? You don’t call the cops anymore?”
He looked straight into my eyes and said, “I have a deal with the chief of police of my home town.”
“Where’s home?” Jore asked.
“Forssa.” Jaysis, this guy was 250 kilometers from home.
“What’s the deal with your chief?”
“The chief of police told me to do this: whenever I get impulses, I don’t call them anymore to tell them there’s a crime. I just get in my car, and I drive in the opposite direction, and they’ll see me go. Then they know there’s a crime scene in the other direction and get there and take care of the trouble.”
I said, “Let me get this straight. You’ve just hopped in your car, like three or four hours ago, in the middle of the night, and drove up to Jyväskylä, just because you have these impulses in your head?”
The guy looked at me. I looked at him. This time, in the colorless light of the neon tubes, I saw into his eyes, and I saw it wasn’t my world there. It was his world. In his world, he was the telepathic crime buster, friend of the chief of police of Forssa, and I was the peon, working my way through college to reach a mediocre position in civil service, while his supernatural impulses helped solve crimes.
And in his world, he was not affected in the least by cuts in the mental health sector.
All of a sudden he put his thumbs to his head, using his palms as antennas. He rotated his head again. “Oh… I feel another impulse. And another one.” seemed to triangulate the origin of the impulses, and managed to find southwest from whence he had come. “Look guys, nice talking to you but I got to go on. I’m not far enough from the crime scene yet.” He turned and took off. Gone were the slinky toy movements, this was a man on a mission half running across the parking lot.
When he sped off northwards, we sat silent for a while. Then I said to Jore: “So… what do we write in the supervisor log?”
He looked at me and said, “I’ll think of something if you’ll do the remaining beat.”
I was only too happy to oblige. The site was calm, even the last night fever people had passed out in their tent or close to it anyway. At the boat beach I saw a pair of proud ducks with ten battery-operated hatchlings in tow, on their way to the reeds for a morning meal. I was delayed by a talkative retired policeman who often appeared very early at the site gate, eager for a chat, so by the time I got back to the reception, Jore had left.
In the evening I reported in for another night, not with Jore this time but another guy. It always was a busy time, that seven o’clock switch. Campers came and went, people hired minigolf gear and asked whether canoes are safe for beginners, and the cashier girls flirted with a busload of Dutch volleyball players.
At some point in the middle of the hustle I had a look at the supervisor log. Jore had written a Spartan entry:
“August 8-9th. Calm night. The police chief of Forssa is a GENIUS.”
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Another Nativity
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