"Sold" - ACWclub Writing Contest #63

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8	"Sold" (the sixty-third ACWclub monthly writing contest)	9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
	Assignment: Write a story or poem using the following title: "Sold" 2500 words or less. Deadline: Midnight (EST), November 15, 2006 All entries are the property of the authors and cannot be copied or reprinted without their consent.

Sold
By stephanie spencer
onetruesally@yahoo.com
(Entry #11)

~Winning Entry~

She set out the last item, a small chipped pitcher they had always used to serve gravy. Her finger absently rubbed the rough spot on the handle as she placed it next to the rice cooker she had never used during her fifteen years of marriage.

“Sheila.”

The woman started at the sound of her name. She looked toward her husband in the doorway to the kitchen; a familiar bitter taste crept around her tongue. He rolled his eyes when she didn’t speak.

“Are you almost finished?” he asked accusingly, watching her impatiently.

“I guess,” Sheila replied with calculated indifference. Her eyes wandered over the sheet-covered tables in the garage. Each held an assortment of household items no longer wanted by either of them. She and Greg used to play a game during their yearly garage sales. Each person would pick the strangest object for sale – the one most likely to be leftover afterward – and try to get someone to buy it. Whoever’s item sold first was the winner and recipient of a foot rub by the loser. Sheila, being more into the game of selling, usually won, but one year a neighbor bought their old toilet as soon as the sale opened. The entire time she massaged his feet that night, Sheila petulantly insisted Greg had made a secret deal with the guy.

“What would you pick this year?” Sheila suddenly asked him.

“What are you talking about?” Greg asked from where he still stood in the doorway, keeping his distance.

“What would you pick to be leftover after the sale?” She wasn’t sure why she wanted to play this game once more. There would certainly be no foot rub for the winner afterward.

“I don’t really care, Sheila.” His jaw was clenched severely but his eyes were somber. She saw his eyebrow twitch in pained confusion before he looked away.

Sheila took a step toward him, unintentionally forcing his retreat into the empty house. She heard his footsteps echo down the hallway. Wearily, defeated, Sheila walked back to the tables displaying the remains of their life together. It had been Greg’s idea for her to set everything up since she had always done it in the past. They had agreed to split the money from the sale; it was about the only thing they could cordially discuss lately.

Well, Sheila thought as she inspected the assortment of knickknacks, cookware, books, and holiday decorations, I would definitely go for this thing. She gingerly picked up a garish seashell mobile someone had brought them from Hawaii. It tilted awkwardly on spindly threads, trying desperately to look whimsical and carefree. Definitely this, she decided and placed it in a more conspicuous spot on the edge of the table.

As she started again toward the door into the house, Greg reappeared wearing his jacket and looking more aggravated than before. Sheila checked her watch and realized she had stayed a half hour longer than she’d promised.

“I’m really sorry, Greg,” she said. “You know how important it is for everything to be just right. People are more likely to buy stuff if it’s arranged neatly in categories...” Sheila saw his jaw set again, edginess manipulating every muscle. He stood silently in the dark doorway.

“Okay, so I’ll go now.” Sheila glanced around the garage before meeting Greg’s eyes briefly. “Sorry again.”

Greg muttered something vaguely accepting as he turned away and headed inside, his keys jangling irritably. Sheila followed him in, grabbed her coat and bags from the hook in the hall, and stepped out onto the porch where the frosty night air startled her lungs.

“It’s a lot colder tonight.” Greg’s voice, less hostile now, came to her from the bottom step.

“Yes.” Sheila hugged herself to keep warm as she stood waiting for Greg to move away toward his car. The inky late summer sky was dotted with stars. Her eyes avoided the bright white for sale sign, a glaring beacon of their failure, stabbed into the otherwise flawless lawn.

“Are you sure I can’t give you a ride?” he asked hesitantly, a hint of annoyance returning to his voice. Greg called her resolve to ride the bus everywhere now unnecessary and silly; Sheila knew it made him feel guilty because she’d insisted he keep the SUV while she had sold their old sedan.

“No, thanks,” she answered, imagining the look on his girlfriend’s face when he explained why he was so late. “Well, actually,” Sheila blurted, “maybe you could just drop me off at the Starbuck’s by my place.” She briskly rubbed her hands together. “If you’re sure it’s no trouble.”

“It’s fine,” he replied hurriedly but not unkindly, already opening the car door and gesturing for her to get in.

As he started the engine, Sheila closed her eyes and let the memory of Greg’s young college-self visit her. Something about boys in backwards ball caps still made her swoon like a Jane Austen girl at a coming out party. She smiled privately in the darkness, recalling the thrill of catching his eyes in a crowded lecture hall. She remembered how, after a twelve hour date on a wintry Saturday found her stranded in his cramped dorm room, he had made a romantic dinner of microwave popcorn, beef jerky, and a shared bottle of beer before…

“Getting warmer?”

“What?” Sheila’s eyes snapped open.

“Are you warm enough?” Greg repeated over the blasting of the heater. He was looking out the rear window as he backed out of the driveway.

“Oh, yeah. Thanks,” she said. She shook her head to remove any lingering traces of the former Greg. It was still difficult to believe he was the same person she met nearly two decades ago. She preferred to think of him as two different people; one she knew long ago and loved, and one she’d recently met and wasn't sure she liked.

The silence was a noxious gas surrounding them. Sheila imagined she might choke if she opened her mouth to speak; she kept her breathing shallow. Greg mindlessly punched through the radio stations, dissatisfied with every offering. Finally, to Sheila’s raised eyebrow surprise, he settled on an NPR news show. She looked over at his silhouette.

“I thought you didn’t like this stuff,” she ventured, careful to sound conversational and unaccusing.

“It’s okay,” he offered placidly.

As she continued staring at his profile, illuminated briefly every few seconds by streetlights and passing cars, Sheila tried to identify when her husband had changed. She had done this countless times already during the past few months, ever since he had made his blunt announcement over their morning coffee. Throughout that day, she had unfailingly completed her usual chores and errands, but would frequently catch herself in a frightening schizophrenic state. One moment, she was calmly absorbed in choosing groceries for their favorite dish; the next found her sobbing raggedly in the car after the butcher innocently greeted her as Mrs. Taylor. But always in a dark place at the back of her mind, then and now, the accusation nagged her – how had she not seen this coming?

Once again, as she rode next to him, Sheila let herself revisit her husband's actions and gestures and words during the last few years. She believed she was being honest with herself, examining Greg's every move like a detective. But she still couldn’t find any of the stereotypical evidence – no late nights at the office, last minute work trips, hotel matchbooks, whispered phone calls at odd hours. It was, she thought tiredly, as if her real husband had simply been removed from their home and replaced with this stranger who looked similar, but was otherwise a completely different person. Like the two Darrens in “Bewitched.” The absurd notion struck Sheila so suddenly that she let out a sharp laugh.

Greg looked over at her with concern. “What?”

It felt odd to be smiling in his direction again. He seemed not to mind; she considered explaining the image that had popped into her head. He might think it was funny; maybe he would try to help her understand this time.

“Oh, nothing.” She sighed and turned to look out the window, her smile fading into the darkness.

Greg’s eyes were back on the road, his face impassive again. He signaled to turn into the strip mall parking lot. Wishing she could think of something else to keep him, her husband, with her a few minutes longer, Sheila slowly gathered her purse and totes.

“Well, thanks a lot.” She tried another smile, feeling as though she were addressing a clerk at the grocery store.

“Sure.” Greg looked back at her with a heartbreaking detachment. Sheila knew he was already in his apartment, savoring dinner with her, looking forward to watching the first game of the season. The knowing was like a punch in the stomach. She slid from the SUV and walked into the coffee shop without looking back.

***

They had agreed to hire some neighborhood teenagers to run the garage sale, to make things easier. But no one had said she couldn’t stop by, check out how things were going. Sheila strolled down their old street, waving briefly at familiar faces along the way. When she reached the driveway, crowded with cars and bustling bargain hunters, she glanced involuntarily toward the antagonistic sign in the yard. The noise and movement around her dissolved as she stared at the bold sticker jauntily slapped across it – “SOLD.” Her mouth went dry; confusion furrowed her brow. How? She must have missed it last night. Why didn’t Greg tell her? There were lots of things he wouldn’t tell, she thought disgustedly.

As the world came back into focus, Sheila noticed Greg’s SUV parked in front of the neighbor’s house. That schizophrenic feeling returned. She was incensed at being in the dark about the sale, but despondent over the loss of her home and, ultimately, her marriage. And yet, it had not really felt like home for many years. Looking at all of the household goods she had set out the day before, Sheila understood her quiet acceptance of Greg’s decision was the final symptom of their broken relationship. There had been no fiery arguments or angry accusations; no desperate pleas, no tearful questioning. She had just gotten busy creating a new life, because that seemed most reasonable after being unable to repair the situation, and denied herself any lingering sadness.

This sudden clarity, along with a welcome sense of liberation, was startling. Peculiar even, occurring as it did in the midst of this last garage sale, while shoppers obliviously inspected their once-private wares. The door to the kitchen opened and out stepped their realtor with Greg, an unfamiliar yet appealing look of relief on his face. Sheila caught her breath as that nostalgic feeling rushed through her. When will I be able to see this man and not want to love him? she wondered, irritated with herself. And not want him to love me again, her girlish self finished sorrowfully.

Before he could notice her, Sheila slid into a corner of the garage. Her gaze landed on the seashell mobile. She picked it up again. Somehow, in the light of the day, it wasn’t the gaudy throwaway souvenir she had thought. It seemed perfect for the balcony of her new place. As Sheila moved toward the cashier, Greg unexpectedly turned and caught her eye.

“Hey,” he said casually. “Did you see it sold? Kelly called me this morning.”

“I saw.” Sheila felt slightly ashamed at having mentally accused him of keeping the sale a secret. “Good for us.” She attempted a nonchalant smile.

Greg nodded. “Yeah.” He took a deep breath and stared out across the yard as he exhaled heavily.

They stood awkwardly in front of the teenager waiting to collect Sheila’s money. “So, that’s just a dollar, if it’s all you want,” the girl said, attempting to encourage their movement.

“Oh, right, sorry.” Sheila reached into her purse while Greg continued to stand solidly next to her, inspecting the garage as if he were an interested buyer. Anyone watching them would be surprised to know they were a couple on the verge of ending a relationship that had lasted half their lives.

Sheila paid for the mobile and hastily wrapped it in newspaper. She couldn’t think of anything to say to adequately explain the purchase, so she let the clumsy silence hang between them.

“Okay, then. Call me when…Well, whenever. I mean, you know...” Sheila bristled at being the one gracelessly stammering, the one buying a ludicrous leftover trinket from their own garage sale, the one alone. Flustered, she turned away with a quick wave.

“Hey, Sheila, wait,” he called. She looked back warily. Greg tipped his head toward the mobile clutched in her hand, a wry smile on his face. “That’s what I would have picked.”

She stared at him, her head cocked. “Well, me, too.” Finally, an honest easy smile arrived on her lips.

“So I guess we both win?”

Home

Sold
By LG Vernon
LGVernon@aol.com
(Entry #8)

~Runner Up~

“Get up, Cinder,” Will muttered, prodding the charcoal-colored gelding into a liquid canter that ate up the last ground between Gladewell and Briarwood. Turning into the long drive he pulled the horse into a walk and used his hat to knock the dust off his trousers and coat.

Clay Wood’s north pasture was full—horses cropping the grass. Will saw what he’d come for and his breath caught. “Damn, she’s a caution,” he muttered, watching the big bay mare capering at the end of the field. He settled his hat on his head, then patted the bulging purse inside his coat. The mare would cost. Anything Clay Wood possessed cost. Will’s lip curled. Dealing with Clay was like trying to pick up a turd by the clean end.

He looked toward the residence at the limit of the drive. Weeping willows, their pale green leaves wafting in the breeze, stood close to the towering, three-storied mansion. Built of stuccoed cypress logs pulled from the swamps in 1749, the house—like his own—had already stood a hundred years and would stand, solid and bug-proof, for a hundred more. He walked Cinder into the yard, expecting to be greeted by one of a gaggle of pickaninnies dressed in pretentious red and while livery. The yard was deserted. Will stepped down and led Cinder to water, then twirled the reins around a hitching rail in deep shade.

“God damn you, I said tie him!”

Will jerked, his head swiveling at the sound of Clay’s voice. Curious, he followed the strident speech around the side of the house toward the back. He walked through a cool, lattice-covered arbor heavy with new grapes, then stepped into the blazing hot light of the kitchen dooryard.

Clay Wood, his white shirtsleeves brilliant in the noonday sun, stood splay-legged on the packed earth. He held a whip—the malignant length of it coiled in his right fist—and watched as his overseer, Raeford Thompson, along with another man, struggled to tie a wild-eyed black to the whipping post set in the center of the yard. A knot of slaves, house workers and yardmen, including two liveried pickaninnies, stood a few feet away. One woman wept, her hands snarled in her skirt.

The buck twisted and spun, momentarily breaking free, but Thompson grabbed hold of him again, pushing him against the thick post with all his weight and strength. “Hurry, dammit! I can’t hold him much longer,” he ground out as the other man fumbled with the rope. In a few seconds it was done and they stood back, watching as the bullish black man strained against the tethers, the muscles in his forearms and neck rippling as he pulled. Finally, he stood still, quivering. His nostrils flared as he glared, narrow-eyed, at Wood. Hatred etched his face. Thompson cuffed him hard enough to snap his neck. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “That insolence of yours is what got you in trouble to start with, boy.” He grabbed the man’s shirt at the neck and ripped it off him in two powerful jerks. “When you gonna learn to respect your betters?”

Will stared. Everyone did. Thick ropes of proud flesh crisscrossed the prisoner’s torso. Some scars—scabbed—still wept, the flesh livid from a beating not two weeks past. He’d been thrashed often and by someone with a knack for it.

Except for the sibilant slithering of the whip as Wood loosed its coils, the assembly in the dooryard was silent.

Clay Wood raised his arm, the leather lash singing in its first upward stroke.

A muscle in Will’s jaw twitched; sweat trickled down his back; his fists tightened. He forced himself to relax. “Afternoon, Clay.”

Wood pivoted and the whip drooped. “McShan,” he said, his voice clipped. Fleetingly, disappointment shadowed his features. “I’ve been expecting you.” He coiled the lash as he walked over, nodding toward the man tied to the post. “This buck’s needed a good hiding for days. I was just about to give it to him.”

Will’s eyes flickered over the slave. “I’m here about the mare.”

Wood grinned, showing his teeth. “Of course.” He tossed the whip to Thompson. “You take over, Ray.” He turned back to Will, shrugging. “Makes no difference anyway who doles out the punishment. Damn nigger’s never going to learn.” He took Will’s arm, urging him away from the whipping post.

“How many, Mr. Wood?”

Wood looked back at Thompson, then appraised the man at the post. “Oh, whatever you think. Fifty, a hundred. Doesn’t matter. Don’t kill him if you can help it. He just came off the boat from New Orleans 3 months ago. I’ll need him fit for work if I’m to get my money out of him, much less that worthless woman who came with him.”

The whip sang and Will winced. Pulling out of Wood’s grasp, he wheeled to watch the scene behind them. His mind raced. Both the slave and the property on which Will stood belonged to Clay Wood. It was against every societal convention to interfere. Thompson raised the whip again and again, the blows on the black man’s flesh leaving bloody, rhythmic testimony of superiority.

Disgusted, Will turned back to Wood. “I’d like to take a closer look at that mare before we chew over a sale. Can Mr. Thompson bring her up?” He pulled the heavy purse from inside his coat, hefting its weight. He stared at Wood, his jaw clenched, his meaning clear. “Now?”

Wood looked at the purse, then at Will. A moment passed in which Thompson delivered two more blows. “Thompson,” Wood drawled, drawing out each syllable, his eyes never wavering from Will’s. “Desist, and come here.” Thompson hurried over, gulping air, his face flushed. Wood took the whip. “Leave the buck on the post and go get the two year-old bay Mr. McShan is interested in.” Suddenly—angrily, he turned toward his people in the dooryard, brandishing the lash. “You get on back to work now, else you’ll all be getting a dose of the same.”

The beaten man drooped, mute, his chest heaving. Blood welled from a half-dozen wounds, then trickled down over his rope belt to soak into his trousers. Slowly, he sank onto one knee, his head resting against the post. Big bluebottle flies clustered on his broken flesh. Reluctantly, Will turned back to Wood who pointed the way to the front of the house.

The mare was perhaps the most beautiful animal Will McShan had ever seen. She stood, head up, ears pricked, as he approached. He pocketed his purse to run both hands down her neck. Her coat gleamed. She whickered, nodding her head, sidling against him. Thompson held the halter. “She’s a proud one,” he said. “Have to treat her with a gentle hand, else you’ll ruin her.” Will nodded, looking at her feet and her hocks.

Wood stood back a few feet leaning against the fence rail, his arms crossed. “Well, what do you think?”

Will glanced up. “I think I’d like a drink, and then we’ll discuss the purchase price.” He patted the mare and dusted off his hands. He and Wood went into the house where they sat in the front parlor and dickered for the better part of the afternoon and through most of a bottle of good brandy, striking a deal just as supper was announced. A black girl of not more than 13 cautiously entered the parlor, her eyes averted, and lit the pull-down chandelier as well as several standing lamps. Will’s mouth went dry as he watched Wood evaluate the child’s uptilted breasts as she moved around the room.

Wood put the final flourish on the ownership papers then slid them across the tabletop. “Quite a deal you made today.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll stay for dinner, of course.”

Will cast about at the grand opulence of the room, the carved pediments, the Belgian carpets and the slave girl, as much a part of the furnishings as the bottles on the sideboard. “No.”

“Then I suppose our evening must end. My dinner awaits me, and I’m sure you’re anxious to get on home to Mrs. McShan.”

Will picked up the papers and tucked them into his coat. His fingers brushed his purse, now all but empty. He smiled. Lucretia would not be pleased; not at first. “No need for you to see me out,” he said. The two men shook hands and Will left the house alone, wiping his palm on his trousers as he crossed the veranda to where Cinder was tied under the trees. He took what he believed to be his first clean breath of the afternoon. Looking out over the wide expanse of manicured lawn, he thought of his empty purse and waited anxiously for Thompson to come.

Instead of Thompson, a slave appeared from around the house, leading the mare. Behind the horse came a woman carrying a bundle under one arm and balancing another on her head. Will walked over and took the mare. He pulled the papers out of his coat and unfolded them. He peered at the script in the waning light. “You’d be Boss, is that right?”

The man nodded. “Yes, suh.”

“You go by any other name?”

“No, suh. Jus’ Boss.”

Will extracted a sheet from the papers and gave it to the man. “Here, put this in your pocket.” He stood while Boss carefully folded the sheet and tucked it away. “Mind you don’t lose that, now.” Then he turned to the woman. “You’d be Julie Ann?”

“Y—yes, suh. I be Boss’ missus. I ain’ got no other name, either.” Her hand trembled as she gestured to the bundles she’d set on the ground. “‘D—d—de overseer, Mist’ Thompson, he said fo’ me ta bring our truck an’ come out wid’ Boss.”

Will handed her a paper, which she also put away. The two stood side-by-side, clearly flummoxed, as Will walked around them. He stopped to look at Boss’ back.

Boss cleared his throat, shifting his weight. “Mistuh?”

“Yes?”

“What about ‘de papers you give us?”

“They’re your ownership papers. I bought them from Mr. Wood. They’re yours now.” He peered at the wounds on the man’s back. You fit to walk a spell?” he asked.

Boss squared his shoulders. “I can walk.”

Will handed the mare’s reins to Boss and stepped aboard Cinder. “Here, you bring the mare. Julie Ann, you bring your belongings.”

Boss looked up, confused. “Bring ‘de mare where, suh?”

Will smiled at the anxious pair, and turned Cinder into the drive. “Home,” he said.

Sold Sal Amico M. Buttaci sambpoet@yahoo.com http://www.geocities.com/sambpoet http://www.freewebs.com/sambpoet	#1 of 16
136 words
On the lawns of our nation, where yard-sale gods reign, buyers and sellers never trade names. It’s a weekend tradition when the weather is kind to seek out your knickknacks– All the tchotchkes you find– then lay out your wares on tables and chairs. On the lawns of our nation where yard-sale gods reign, commerce is thriving though the economy’s lame. Flea-market ads run in classified pages addresses and dates for those with free time to come take a look: skates, a radio, maybe old books. On the lawns of our nation where yard-sale gods reign, folks sell their possessions both fancy and plain, those things they once promised forever to keep now thanks to yard sales They can stack up in heaps. Quarters and dimes can buy back some time. On the lawns of our nation where yard-sale gods reign, The words of the day From the young and the old? “I like it!” “I’ll take it!” and “Sold!” It’s a national pastime; call it an obsession, but nobody complains except when it rains.

Sold RUBY ASTARI author81@gmail.com	#2 of 16
153 words
Men and women of this government, I wonder what they're looking for from working on the draft's amendments controlling this country with their terror the minority's tyranny and orders. A hypocrite's hidden agenda, a so-called holy saints' mission, a politicized moralist, a blind puritan, and a society in drastic alteration. No more night-outs for women, or they're deemed as prostitutes. While perverted beasts roam freely with a sick excuse to rape everybody. What will happen to this country? Men and women of this government, shadowing their insecurities and ill-intentions, hiding their young, pretty concubines from their old, boring wives, or keeping their lecherous husbands from the sexy girls in tank-tops, they rudely stereotype as home-wrecking sluts. What are they after? This stupid draft isn't helping at all. Their fellow citizens are still poor. Children starve and can't go to school. Who are they trying to fool? When earning more money is their only reason, no concerns for the struggling lives of every working, single mother trying to make ends meet, until this country will be sold to the highest bidders of the world.

Sold Michael Pelc michaelpelc@yahoo.com	#3 of 16
1510 words
Paco Mondragon had lived a proper life. He did not drink. He did not smoke. He did not cuss. He did not even play golf. And so, a week ago last Tuesday, at the intersection of Cerrillos Road and St. Francis Drive, when he was run over and killed by a beer truck whose brakes had failed, Paco felt reasonably confident that there would be a place for his soul in heaven. He did not even mind so much the fact that he was dead, except that a week ago last Tuesday was the first game of the World Series. Perhaps, Paco thought to himself, as the fluffy white cloud he was riding on began to slow down, they have cable up here. Paco had thought a lot about heaven during the exemplary life he'd led when he was back on earth, and he looked forward to reaching the pearly gates some day. He'd envisioned the moment countless times in his mind: how little blonde, curly-haired angels would be playing harps and trumpets and floating on clouds. St. Peter would be there to greet him, of course. Paco would be on one side of the gates and St. Peter would be on the other, wearing a magnificent, flowing white robe and sitting on a large, ornate throne. St. Peter would be holding the Book of Deeds, and it would already be open to the letter M for Mondragon. The little rosy-cheeked, curly-haired angels would all gather around and there would be a ceremony of sorts in which St. Peter checked the Book of Deeds to be sure he had the right Paco Mondragon - the one who lived in Santa Fe, didn't drink, didn't cuss, didn't smoke and made the pilgrimage to Chimayo every year at Easter. Once St. Peter was sure he had the right Paco Mondragon, trumpets would blare - something by Copland, perhaps Fanfare for the Common Man - then the gates would open, Paco would float on through, and a photographer would take Polaroids of the moment so that Paco could have a memento to carry around with him for all eternity. There was, however, just one little problem with Paco's vision of heaven. It was nothing like the scene before him. There was no Saint Peter. No chubby-cheeked little angels. No Book of Deeds. Not even any pearly gates. What there was was an old, worn wooden desk of garage sale quality at best with a little brass bell sitting on it. The bell resembled the kind you might find on a check-in counter at a Holiday Inn motel, except that it was engraved Algonquin Motor Court on the underneath. Someone had apparently stuck a neon pink post-it note on the bell. Paco walked over to it to see what it said. RING BELL FOR SERVICE How odd, Paco thought to himself, that there should be no one around. Now once upon a time, back when he was a child and sick in bed with the flu and couldn't make it to Sunday mass, Paco had had a nightmare about heaven. But even that was nothing like this, for there were still pearly gates and little blonde, rosy-cheeked angels and St. Peter and clouds and harps and all the usual trimmings and trappings one thinks about when one thinks about heaven. It's just that, in his nightmare, when Paco arrived at the pearly gates, they wouldn't let him in. It seems there'd been some sort of bureaucratic error, and they'd accidentally given his spot to some other Paco Mondragon, and so Paco - the real Paco - had to go to that other place whose name he didn't even like to say. He told his mother all about his nightmare, but she said it was just the fever and he shouldn't worry about it. But he did worry about it of course, because getting in to heaven was very important to Paco, so the next week when he was feeling better and was back at church, he told his priest about the nightmare. Father Trujillo chuckled at the little boy and assured Paco that they kept meticulous records in heaven and were most unlikely to make such an earthly mistake. What Father Trujillo had said made sense, and of course who would know better than a priest when it comes to knowing what heaven is like. On the other hand, Father Trujillo never said anything about a ring-bell-for-service post-it note. Paco took the metaphysical equivalent of a deep breath, closed his eyes and rang the bell. "Whadya want, kid?" said a voice. Paco peeked out of one eye. A stubble-faced, slightly overweight man who looked like he hadn't shaved since yesterday was sitting on the other side of the desk. He looked to be in his mid to late fifties, and he was sitting in a golf cart cleaning some imaginary mud off the spikes of his golf shoes with a divot repair tool. He had a chubby, blunt-tipped cigar clenched between his teeth, and a collection of smoke rings, all perfectly round, encircled his head. "I'm, uh, looking for Saint Peter," said Paco. "That'd be me, kid. What can I do for you?" "Well, I'm Paco Mondragon, uh, from Santa Fe, and I died last week, you see, and, uh, well, I'm here to see about getting into heaven. I guess." "Hmph." Saint Peter made a snorting sound, and a puff of smoke came out of his nose. "Didn't they tell you?" "Didn't they tell me what?" "We sold the place." "What? You sold my place in heaven? What did you do that for? Didn't you know I was coming?" It was the nightmare coming true! They'd given his place away to some other Paco Mondragon! All those years of fasting and praying and saying no to temptation, and never once - not even in grammar school - pretending to drop his pencil on the floor, the way Kenny and Sammy always did, so he could bend down to pick it up and peek up the dress of the girl sitting next to him. And for what? So they could give his place away to someone else, someone who probably did a lot worse in life than peek up dresses. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair! "No, no, don't take it personally, kid. We didn't sell your place. We sold THE place. Heaven. The whole thing. Lock, stock and barrel. Sold it. Just like that." Saint Peter snapped his fingers and blew another perfectly round smoke ring that hovered above his head like a halo. "What do you mean, you sold heaven? Why on earth would anyone sell heaven?" "Well, you know, The Big Guy was kind of getting on up there in millenia, and He got to thinking how maybe it was time to retire. So He did. Just like that." Saint Peter snapped his fingers again. "You know how impulsive He can be at times." "God retired?" "Oh, yeah. He and Moses and a couple of the apostles bought a condo in Miami. Nice place. Top floor. Nowadays, you want to be close to God, you move to Miami. It's as simple as that." Saint Peter blew another smoke ring. "But I'm dead. I can't move to Miami." "So, what do you want to do, kid?" "I dunno. I'd never thought about a heaven without God in it," said Paco, wondering if his soul had taken a left when it should have taken a right and maybe he'd ended up at the wrong heaven, if there was such a thing. "Well, you should have, y'know. You people didn't think The Big Guy was just gonna hang around here forever, did you?" "Actually, we did." "Well, I don't know what to tell you, kid, but He's gone now. Living out the golden years in Florida, just like everybody else. Playing a little golf, doing a little fishing. Got Himself one of those metal detectors, you know. Likes to walk the beach looking for lost coins and jewelry, things like that. Says it keeps His mind occupied." "Oh," said Paco because he didn't know what else to say. Nothing in the Bible, nothing in his Catechism classes, nothing in any of the sermons Father Trujillo preached had prepared Paco for a moment or a place like this. Saint Peter stole a glance at his watch. He looked very impatient. "Look, kid, you want in or not?" It was a simple enough question. Eternity here or eternity somewhere else. And all Paco had to do was say yes. Just say yes, and he was in, simple as that. Okay, so heaven wasn't exactly the way he'd thought it would be, but it was still heaven even if it didn't have a God any more. And a heaven without God just had to be better than that other place, the one where that guy with the horns and the tail and the little beard that made him look like Vladimir Lenin lived. "Yeah, I guess so," said Paco finally. Maybe it was the right decision and maybe it wasn't, but at least it was something he wouldn't have to concern himself with any more. At long last Paco Mondragon could kick off his shoes, lean back in his Barco-lounger, relax and enjoy a nice, peaceful, stress-free eternity in heaven. "Good choice, kid. Good choice. Lucky for you we had a place open up only last week. Nice little timeshare overlooking the third fairway. Great views. Maintenance free neighborhood. A real gem, I tell you, a real gem." "Did you say timeshare?"

Sold Peter G. Engelman lovewriting@comcast.net	#4 of 16
1464 words
I entered the Ebay site wondering if I could really sell something that cost me nothing. It didn’t make sense that I could make such easy money. I felt a little uneasy putting it up for sale, especially since it was copyrighted, so I checked the popular auction site for similar items. To my surprise, I found quite a few being offered for sale. I searched the completed transaction history to view the record of previous sales and was delighted to find an entire page of transactions. Obviously, selling the item was perfectly legal. I completed the listing page and uploaded a picture that was shot with my digital camera. It didn’t take long to complete the process. In a matter of minutes, I had a live auction going. How exciting! I felt like I was selling a rare Rembrandt at Southebys. For the next seven days, I would check for bids anxiously awaiting the outcome. I went to bed thinking about the millions of people having access to my auction. I dreamed about them bidding during the night. Surely there would be others with an interest in my product. But then again, how could I expect someone to pay good money for something that cost me nothing? I checked my auction in the morning. I found that three people had visited my page. The counter at the bottom of the page recorded the visits of these mysterious viewers. There were no bids. I waited till the evening and checked my auction again. The counter registered five visitors with no other activity. I slept fitfully that evening tossing and turning in my bed. At 3 a.m., when I realized that sleep was out of the question, I got up and turned on my computer. I could feel my heart jump with anticipation as I surfed over to the Ebay site. I signed in with my name and password and clicked on "My Ebay," to see the results of my listing. The computer page refreshed and asked again for my user name and password. I didn’t understand the need for the repeated request, but like a dummy, I typed in the answers. I stared into the computer screen with bleary eyes watching the page slowly load. I had to think whether I was still using dial-up. I looked to my side and noticed the green lights flickering on my broadband modem; then I remembered the Comcast man crawling under my desk just a few weeks earlier. The black gauge on my toolbar tried desperately to move to the other side. Finally, I was rewarded with a new page that said, ‘this site is temporarily unavailable. Please click refresh or try again later.’ At 3 a.m. in the morning, this was not the message I was looking for. I clicked on the refresh icon and the page tried to load again. I waited for the irritating message to flash up on the screen, but to my surprise it hid itself in a tab at the bottom of my task bar. In its place, the Ebay home page with its spectrum of lively colors suddenly appeared. I cheered silently as I clicked on my home page. It was now 3:15 a.m. and I moved my hands slightly away from my foggy eyes, letting the full brightness of the screen invade my sleepy retinas. I clicked on my auction hoping to see some action. The counter read 10 with no bids. But wait, there was something else on my page. The note said three people were watching the auction. I didn’t quite understand the significance of the message, so I opened Google in a separate window and checked on the term. Wow! I was surprised to learn that people could tab your auction as a favorite without placing a bid. That meant that they had an interest but were not ready to place a live bid. I typed a few more terms into the Google search engine and discovered that some bidders wait till the last minute before making their bids, hiding out in cyberspace until that crucial period when everyone seems to jump in with both feet. I wondered if what I read would apply to my auction. Again, I thought about what I was selling and couldn’t believe that anyone would really pay for something so commonly available. I was elated to have some watchers. I climbed back into bed feeling more educated and hopeful that the statistics would change by morning. Daylight seemed to take forever as I fluffed my pillow over and over again. I arose from bed with a hangover and a sore neck and back. My first thought was to run to the computer, but I tried holding off. I tried reasoning with myself. The auction was set for seven days. At the rate I was going, I might not make it to the end. I couldn’t imagine going another five nights without sleep. The damned auction had suddenly taken control of my life. I promised myself I would check the web page just once a day. On the sixth day, the number of visitors to the auction began to pick up. My counter went from 20 to 40 overnight. My watchers also increased from three to seven and I had a single bid for $1.00. In speaking with others more knowledgeable, I learned that this hyperactivity was typical of Ebay auctions that were nearing their close. The cost for the Ebay listing was only 65 cents, but my nerves paid a much higher price. I walked around the house like a zombie, bumping into walls while barely recognizing my kids. Of course, I hadn’t anticipated the psychological costs of participating in this favorite American past time. On day seven, I waited until 20 minutes before the auction end to return to the computer. After the uneventful events of the past week, I prepared myself for much of the same. I was surprised to see five bids with the last one at $8.50. I rubbed my eyes and stared into the computer screen blankly, wondering if I had read the screen correctly. I clicked my refresh button and the screen reloaded. There was 15 minutes left in the auction. As the minutes passed, I lost my mouse curser. I knew it was there; it had to be. It was probably buried under one of those other windows that were always in the background. By the time, I found the !&%@ curser, the auction end was down to eight minutes. I reloaded the page and couldn’t believe my eyes. There were ten bids with the last one at $22.50. I sat in my swivel chair anxiously turning from side to side. Suddenly, I felt like I was at the horse races rooting for my favorite nag. I watched the clock tick down to the finish line wondering if my 3-year old would come in to the money. If I clicked my refresh button ten times, I did it a hundred times. At this point in the race, who was keeping score? Every time I refreshed the page, the number would change. At three minutes, the bidding was furious; I had 23 bids and an auction price of $40.85. I looked up at the clock on my wall and watched the second hand sweep around the numerals in laps that seemed to never end. When I refreshed the page again, the counter at the bottom of the page read 235. The countdown clock said 45 seconds. The bid was at $ 200.00 with 35 bids. I waited till the page showed 10 seconds before reloading it. I figured that was it. There wouldn’t be any further bidding. How could anyone bid again in the last ten seconds? I asked myself. It took me that long to find my curser. By the time the page reloaded, the auction had ended. The last bid was placed exactly three seconds before the end of the auction. The final bid was $ 226.00. I sat there bewildered, wondering why anyone would pay that much money for an old AOL disc I had received in the mail some ten years earlier. It wasn’t anything special, just an old unopened 5.25 inch floppy disc in its original folder with version 1.0 stamped under the American Online logo, offering ten free hours of internet access. I clicked the X box in the corner of my screen and turned off my computer, watching the familiar Microsoft emblems fade into blackness. I rose from my chair thanking God for the end of the auction. The $ 226.00 will sure come in handy, I thought to myself, but the next time I find something old in the bottom of my desk drawer, I think I’ll leave it there and spend the next seven days at the shore.

Sold Roger Haller roger@cowboylogic.net	#5 of 16
2399 words
I’ve been getting acquainted with my new reality now for two days but I have no idea how I got here, where “here” is or what fate lies in store for me. I am in a jail… or a cage of some kind with no facilities, no food and the only water is the constant puddles at the weather edge of my confinement from the constant warm rain. I am wearing my business suit and my last memory before this predicament was leaving my desk and heading for the elevator. I had flipped my rain coat on over my sport jacket, donned my fedora, and grabbed my computer. I woke using my rain coat as a blanket and my jacket as a pillow. Now I blog everything that happens on my laptop and with a fine point sharpie on the back cage wall. The back being the only solid wall. I won’t have battery very long so the wall will, I assume last longer. Hopefully, someone will read this sometime and find out what happened to me. I need to eat soon and have taken to chewing on the name tag on my computer case. It’s not very satisfying, but not so bad tasting at all. Writing these words seems strange. I feel like I should be writing my will. Maybe I should. Right now, I’m just not in the mood to figure out who should take possession of my home and car. I’m not sure what to expect. I’m loosing weight, but I still have some energy from the water and I feel light and agile. I can easily jump and touch the ceiling which has to be 10 feet from the floor. At home, my two hundred and twelve pound frame was lucky to get off the floor in a mighty jump. Some crash diet. I did my business in the rain soaked corner and scraped it out between the bars with a small tree limb the wind supplied, but I hadn’t needed it today. The rain was removing the evidence quite nicely. Night comes suddenly in this place and it seems to come more often. I expect incarceration and starvation to make the days drag, but I can watch the shadows of dull daylight crawl across my cage and night is with me again. Since there is little else to do and nothing but my past to look forward to, I lie down and try to sleep. Maybe I’ll dream about Margo tonight. I will keep the sharpie in my pocket for easy access. My skin feels pruned and wrinkled as I rub my hands under my coat. 11/03/2006 I was wakened by my floor tilting to the side and my body deposited against the bars near what I considered the front of my prison. I grabbed my computer bag as it was about to seek freedom between the bars and held on for the sake of sanity if nothing else. I may have whimpered some at this time, but I don’t remember well. Beside me swung two huge fur laden legs in a fore and aft ballet while my jail bounced up and down causing my head to bob like a carried chicken. Pressing my head to the bars, I peered up at the tower in charge of my journey to find a four story biped that looked very much like Discovery Channel’s version of a Neanderthal but with far more hair, or more exactly fur. I decided now might be a good time to be quiet so I worked my way to the back wall and with my case clutched between my knees, my jacket and coat on and my fedora perched in a most business manner, I braced my forearm firmly against the wall and continued my journal. I checked the time and date on my watch, carefully wrote every word you are reading now and worked my mind into thinking I wasn’t the type that gets seasick. I took a moment out to swing my head to the bars and lose a couple of ounces of bile down the leg of my captor. It wasn’t pleased. The jail and I come to rest on a huge boulder. The beast took time out to wipe down its glossy brown fur before dropping its ape like face to my level to study its trinket. A huge fist came into view with an index finger like an eight inch log pointing directly at me. In stunned horror I watched as it slid happily through the bars to bunt me in the belly hard enough to double me over to collapse on the floor. It tried to communicate with grunts and deep rumblings in its chest then settled in to pet me with two fingers as a child would a scared baby rabbit. I felt the part. With another grunt, it stood and my journey continued. I fell back to work at my journal, no better for being sick and sore from bruised ribs. The shadow deepened toward night again as my cage was settled into place across from several others. Most were empty but in one cage I saw, another human in the same predicament I faced. In the waning light I called out to a woman across the way. She stood from her kneeling position and ran to the bars at the front of her cage. “Do you speak English?” I could not stop shaking as I called back. “Yes, I do, my name is Tom Billings from Portland Oregon.” “I’m Sharon from Tucson. Do you know where we are? Do you know why we are here?” “Not a clue. All I know is I’m starving, wet, hot and so thankful to hear another human voice.” Below us I now heard rustling and a new voice joined the conversation. “Je suis fran ais, parlez-vous fran ais?” I just knew enough to know I could not talk with this guy very well. “Non, pas… tr s bien” “OK. I …try English...some. Je suis…Uh,, I am Jean Belanger, Oui? Je… I am… uh…from Besancon beside riviere du Doubs… beside Jura mountains…France.” “Hello Jean, I am Tom and that is Sharon. How long have you two been here?” Sharon replied “I was just dumped here.” “Oui, Je… Me too.” The chat fest was now interrupted by a flurry of fur between us and bits of raw meat and a celery or rhubarb type stock of vegetable were pushed through all our bars. I could see no gain in holding out for a Big Mac so I dug in. Large containers of water were now added and the creature seemed pleased to see us eating. Its lips curled up over crooked teeth and judging by the canines, that mouth ate meat as well. The captor now lifted my cage high in a tree and fastened it some how from the roof. I was eating, swaying in front of a huge set of curious eyes. I wondered if it would respond to an attempt at communication. I stopped for a moment and moved to the front of the cage. I held out my arm with palm up and spoke. Hello, I’m Tom… Can you understand me? The beast growled something low and grinned. It held its hand as I did. I reached a little farther and it responded by putting its finger within my reach. I tapped the finger gently and nodded my head pointing at the food. The creature nodded , lifted my cage from its perch, set me back on top of Jean and moved to the others. I knew at this time it was most important to learn how to communicate with my captor. My life probably depended on it. If you are unfortunate enough to read this, I expect this will be information you will need most. I began to study. 11/10/2006 A mostly uneventful week has passed with regular food and water. I got to know Sharon and Jean better than I wanted to, seeing I was in full view of Sharon at all times as she was with me and poor Jean lived directly under my “toilet”. We agreed to use the same corner and Sharon and I agreed to turn when necessary. Communication with the creature continued and today we hit a new milestone. I came to understand the creature used a written language as it placed a huge sign over all the cages. With my Sharpie I duplicated the characters on a piece of notepad paper and showed the beast. This impressed it considerably. With motions at the cages, the sign and hand to hand, I learned it was a for sale sign. Today I was surprised with the arrival of another of these creatures. This one a lighter shade of brown highlighted by golden tips to each hair. This created a sheen overall and was most impressive. The two communicated for a while and the new one began my training. I had no hope of parroting the sounds these huge creatures made when they communicated so they concentrated on their written language. I soon reached an epiphany when I recognized a pattern in the characters. Putting the characters together I experimented with rudimentary words The golden beast made clear a certain set of characters referred to us three captives, Then I found a slight variation that differentiated between Sharon and us men. This meant these beings understood our different sexes. My understanding of these words was not all pleasant, I now understood those signs This day has been huge, but I can no longer see what I write on this wall so I will continue tomorrow. 11/11/2006 This morning was an awakening in more than one way. Shortly after we were fed, Sharon’s cage was opened from the top, she was plucked out dangling and screaming four stories in the air, my roof was lifted off and she was placed in with me. Once let go, she ran to me and I held her as she shivered in fear. The roof to my cell was replaced and clipped and we were studied by that fur covered face as we huddled in the center of my prison. The creature wagged a down turned finger at us a few times, which made Sharon cling tighter and in turn made the creature grin. With no more than a scared huddle to entertain, the creature proceeded to show us what it wanted. The roof was lifted completely off and with the utmost care, using only two fingers and a thumb a petrified Sharon was placed on her hands and knees. I was next to go to my knees, but I was then slid against her backside and my arms lifted to be placed on her shoulders. When we stayed where we were put, the roof was settled back on our cage, clipped shut and the huge face was again at eye level with us and its eyebrows lifted in a hopeful gaze. We were breeding stock. Our subsequent conversation was something like: “Sharon, do you understand what that creature wants?” “Yes… What are you going to do?” “Play along with me… I’m going to try to convey that we know what is expected, then try and communicate we want privacy.” “But I don’t want…” “I know, but I need to try and buy time. I am going to pretend I am uh…humping you. Play along, I will then pull you to the back of the cage, cuddle and look over our shoulders at the beast in hopes it gets the idea we don’t want an audience. Are you with me” “Yes… Ok.” I made the expected motions but I have to admit, it was not as unpleasant for me as I supposed it was for Sharon. Shortly I pulled back, stood, helped Sharon up and moved her to the back of the cage where we knelt huddled and looked over our shoulder at the smiling creature. It left, seemingly satisfied we were going to mate. It seems strange to write this, but here is a close approximation of the chat we had about our dilemma. Sharon started it off. “Now what?” “ I don’t know, but I have the feeling it is not going to settle for pretend. I think it wants too raise pet humans… or at least I hope it wants pets.” “What do you mean by that?” “I simply don’t like the alternative” I was silent for a moment and her gaze rose from her hands on her knees to my face. Her eyes growing along the way. “No!” “Look, it’s not going to do us a flea’s pimple of good to worry about it. We are in no position to dictate our fate at present. The way I see it, we have to become pets to survive. We need to be cute, entertaining and endearing.” Sharon’s horror leaned a bit toward hope as she caught my drift. “What do you suggest?” I was silent a moment while carving up this reality then by her arms I pulled her to face me. My voice lowered. “We have to mate. Can you bear children?” “Wha….” “Look, if we don’t you will be placed with Jean and be expected to try harder with him, Its really your choice, but you will have to mate with one of us or all of us will be expendable.” I looked into her eyes as she absorbed the insanity of discarding human games and embracing the animal side of our nature. At least she wasn’t screaming at the idea. Sharon was past prime a bit and so was I. neither of us were part of the elite in human social politics, but she most certain had her charms and I would have no trouble with the arrangement. “If this works, you may be mated with other men too. I suppose it depends if there are more where we came from and just how we impress.” Her head shook from side to side in a dazed arc, but she looked me over some and rested her eyes on my face. “Well, Tom, you aren’t Cruise, but I’m not Angelina either. If we have to do this, you most certainly will do in a pinch.” She delivered the line with a smile so I supposed we were an item. “Its going to expect a show isn’t it.” I nodded, moved over to the wall and began writing this post. 11/12/2006 Today we performed for our captor so it ran for its companion and suddenly our audience grew. I had trouble concentrating when it became apparent five creatures were getting a charge out of two small naked animals getting busy. A complicated conversation grew out side our cage, Jean was placed in Sharon’s former home and the sign over it was changed. As we finished, my fevered brain deciphered “Sold”

Sold lee10@host365.com	#6 of 16
2083 words
Ryan discovered that she’d moved the bed and it had been enough of an excuse for him to beat her, but not on the face. He never touched their faces. Mia had only wanted to look out of the window to see London for the first time. They’d told her it was London. She wasn’t sure whether to believe them or not but thought that if she stood on the bed she might even see the London Eye from the skylight, despite the dirt and bird droppings on the glass. Then she’d know where they’d brought her. Standing on the bed, she’d seen nothing except a stained concrete-clad wall that might once have been white, a grey tiled roof on which green and orange algae was growing and a great expanse of rain-filled sky. And that had been that. She’d pushed the bed back afterwards but obviously not to the exact spot from which she’d removed it. Telltale indentations in the linoleum floor had given her away. Mia hadn’t known she wasn’t allowed to move the furniture. Ryan soon filled her in as to what she could and couldn’t do. Basically, she could do nothing except what he told her to do. “And that includes when you can shit and when you can fart,” he snarled. * Though there have been times when I’ve disliked my daughter, I always love her. Mia is my oldest. That makes her special. Even as my two boys are special because they are boys and my youngest, Evelyn, is special because she was the last. I would kill for my children. I would die for my children. But you can’t live for your kids, can you? They have a future, which I cannot control but the urge to do so at times is almost overwhelming. Take Mia, for example, she is convinced that she can speak English well. Yet she has only learned to sing along to the words of American and British pop songs. She won’t be told. She had English lessons at school but she never really applied herself and rarely did her homework. She knew it all, you see. Mia is my argumentative daughter, unlike Evelyn who is sweet natured and compliant. Mia is too like me to listen to what I have to say. She calls me an, “old-fashioned European”, and asks, “What do you know about the modern world?” And I cannot argue. For what do I know? I was born as the war in Europe was ending so I never experienced the upheavals that my parents knew. Life on the farm when I was growing up was hard. The physical work was never-ending; in the fields all day then in the home at night. I envied my four brothers. They had freedoms that I could only dream about. And dream I did. Just as Mia does. But all my girl friends suffered from the same constraints so I was less unsettled than Mia is. It was the way things were then. Mia won’t accept those ways. She won’t accept the differences. She won’t have it that although boys are vulnerable in this world, girls are even more so. So when Mia said she was determined to travel to England and look for work, I did my best to stop her. Oh, I didn’t tell her, “No!” That would only have made her more resolute. Instead I bought her a puppy and I encouraged her to date boys from the town. I thought that if she had someone special here at home, the urge to travel to a foreign country might wane. It didn’t work. To the disgust of her brothers, she wears clothes that are in the latest fashion. My boys date girls who are dressed the same but they dislike seeing their sister wearing short skirts and cropped tops. And there was that one occasion when her brother Nathan held her down and scrubbed the makeup from her face with a stiff nailbrush. I would have stopped him had I been home at the time. I know my Mia, and sure enough, the following day, despite her skin being red and sore, her makeup was twice as thick. Nathan didn’t repeat the punishment. His nose was broken in the scuffle. He’s a young boy. He has plenty of learning of his own to do. He did some that evening. Mia is pretty but she’s no different from most of the other teenagers in town. She wants it all and she wants it all now. In the end, I let her go. What choice did I have? But before I gave her my blessing, I did plenty of homework. I found an agency, which has a good reputation. It will find her work in an English hotel. An older woman will travel with the girls and will look after them but the best recommendation is that many of the girls who have used this agency have returned home, with nothing but praise for the organisation. Mia went two months ago. On the day the girls left home, I stood in the middle of the road, watching the brown cloud of diesel that the old town bus belched out until Old Frederic threatened to drive his donkey cart over me. I haven’t heard from Mia yet. She hates writing letters. She’s just like me. * I loathe this bus. It has rattled and farted along the same route to the city for thirty years that I know of and every year it becomes dirtier and smellier. The mothers were soon lost in a cloud of filthy smoke. Each time I tell myself this will be the last trip but the pickings are too good to give up that easily. Maybe I will buy the bus company and a new bus. But the peasants don’t deserve that, so I’ll save my money. I’ve identified two girls on this trip whom I could ‘lose’. Each trip there are two or three girls who have a price that’s worth taking a risk or two for. It’s just a matter of altering some insignificant paperwork. The two I have chosen this time are both extraordinarily pretty. Mia ?sling is eighteen years of age. She has long, black hair and dark, gypsy looks. She is a type that is popular in Britain. The other child, Leni Reimann, is blonde and with an exquisite body. She is seventeen. They will both fetch good prices. I am also taking fifteen other girls to work in Britain. They are my cover. Who would connect me with the absence of two girls who are too lazy to write home, when fifteen lumpy, dowdy girls write regularly, become homesick and return to their mothers? We’ve travelled through three countries since passing our own borders. I’ve taught the girls to call me ‘Auntie’. It’s a trust thing. They are fools. But I treat them well. At the last stop I split the two pretty girls from the group. It was as easy as cutting sheep from a flock with a canny, old sheepdog. I accidentally jostled Mia and spilt Coca-Cola down her blouse and as predicted, she ran squealing to the toilets to clean herself up. I sent Leni to help her and while they were gone, I chivvied the rest of the girls onto the coach and we left the services café. When the two girls exited the toilets, they’d have found a Good Samaritan on hand to help them. My sister left our town just before us and drove her car in front of the coach all the way. Neither the driver nor the girls suspected a thing. It means I have to share the profits but it’s a good living nevertheless. My sister’s a plump motherly woman and no girl has ever refused to go with this stranger who offers to help, “catch up with the coach.” What else can they do in a strange country where they don’t speak the language? If any of the lumpy girls notice the two are missing, I shall tell them of the incident with the spilt drink and say that the girls were so upset they insisted on going back to their mothers and that I gave them the money for their train fare. But lumpy girls never seem to care what happens to the pretty ones and no one has asked the question yet and I’ve been doing this job for years. It was much more difficult once. The paperwork was horrendous and I had to be very careful to cover my tracks but now the European Union has opened its borders, it is so easy to transport teenagers. Especially to Britain. Security there is incredibly lax. I can come and go with my girls more or less as I please. * As soon as I saw my sister push the last of her milk cows through the café doors, I went to the toilets as planned, where I found the dark haired girl stripped down to her black, lacy bra, drying her blouse under a hand drier. I decided to ask more for her than I’d originally planned. The other girl was just standing grinning at her. I’ll soon wipe that smile from your face, I thought. Once she’s been broken in, she’ll only smile to order. The dark girl was angry and snapped at the blonde. I smiled. The blonde smiled back at me and raised her eyebrows as if to say, “What is she like?” I pretended to use the facilities and when they left the Ladies, I followed. I watched as they searched for the rest of their party. I watched as the desperation built up and spilled over into tears when they found they were alone. I wandered past them when the blonde began to cry and did my maternal bit. I should have been an actress. It works every time. They were convinced by my kindness and my thoughtfulness. And when I offered them a lift to try to catch up with their coach they dried their eyes quickly and accepted. It was as easy as the clichéd, ‘shooting fish in a barrel’. We practically ran to my car, the girls jabbering in my ear all the while; describing the coach to me and screaming about what they’d do to the crazy woman who left them behind. I smiled. My sister has often generated the same response in me. But I get my own back. The extra I’ll get for this ripe pair will be all mine. The dozy cow trusts me implicitly. She’s such a sad fool but she is good at her job. So we sped towards the coast. There was no fear we’d find the coach. It went through France and I diverted into Belgium. The girls were sleeping but wouldn’t have noticed anyway as there are no border controls. The girls are pretty but they are farming clods all the same with little intelligence and no worthwhile education. It beats me why the British are so happy to let them into the UK. But they do, so I cash in. * The fat cow handed me the new tarts. She told them that although they hadn’t been able to find the coach, there was a lorry going to Dover soon and she’d arranged for them to go with it. They seemed OK with this. How stupid can folk be? “Joseph will look after you,” she told them. They didn’t see the plain brown envelope I gave her after I’d beaten her price down. This pair was worth every penny she’d asked for, even though I wasn’t prepared to give it to her. They were juicy. It’s my job to break the girls in. I like my work. I had three days before Ryan came for them. It was enough. Some call it rape. Whatever. It takes a skilled man to change these peasant girls into tarts without breaking their spirit entirely. It only took a couple of sessions to ‘treat’ the blonde. The black-haired one was a handful but I like a challenge. By the time I’d finished they were obedient but I could see by the look in their eyes that they were waiting for a chance to put a knife into my ribs. I gave them no chance. It’s Ryan’s job to finish off their conditioning. He’s better at the subtleties than me. He’s good at his work too. * The girls were taken to England. And met Ryan. They were split up. Mia ended up in Bristol. She is allowed no voice of her own.

Sold bren60@bellsouth.net	#7 of 16
2389
It was a typical Saturday morning, and Charlie Applegate sat on his patio watching the orange and purple of the sunrise fade from the sky. As sailboats tacked out into Lake Michigan, he thought fondly of the times when his father taught him how to sail. On Sundays, he usually went to his mother’s, partly because she was the best cook in the world and partly because she kept him centered. The rest of the time he worked. That special woman was no longer in the picture. He had gone that route before but when it backfired, he decided on bachelorhood as the best alternative. Oh, Charlie dated but he would not allow himself to be hurt ever again. Charlie was in advertising in downtown Chicago. His work would take him to L.A. or New York; make the client happy, then return to his home on the lake, watch another Saturday sunrise, more work, and time with his mother. Thinking of his weekly routine one Saturday, he said aloud, “I have got to get a hobby!” Golf was fun, but usually there was a business deal attached to the outing. Just then, the phone rang, “Hello Mother, what’s up?” Charlie asked. “Oh, Charlie I will never get used to caller ID…I got a call late last night from that Rita person; Honey, your father passed away.” After their divorce, Charlie’s dad had moved to California. Rita was his latest plaything. His mother continued, “He had a heart attack last night and died on the way to the hospital. Will you be able to get away?” “It won’t be a problem. Man, I just saw him two weeks ago; he looked great. We spent the morning playing golf and he was telling me he had a buyer for his business. Dad was so looking forward to his retirement and my visit in January. This is a shock. I’ll give Rita a call and let her know I’m coming out. Why did she call you?” “She thought she was calling you; is she for real? Since it was already midnight, I told her I would call you first thing this morning. She’s waiting for a call, but remember, there is a three-hour difference as I informed her last night. Love you; I know you can handle this.” Charlie sank back in the chair thinking about his last visit to Palm Springs. It took him most of the morning contacting his secretary, changing some appointments for the next week and making travel arrangements. By afternoon, he was packed and ready to fly out the next morning. He landed in Palm Springs at eleven, picked up his rental, and drove to his father’s house. Rita had been asleep on the couch wrapped in a large blanket. “I am so glad you’re here,” were her greeting words. “Shit, you should have seen him. I will never forget how scared he looked. He just sat on the edge of the bed and said, ‘call Charlie’. He looked at me and said, ‘call Charlie’ and pfft, that was it; he fell to the floor. Charlie, I can’t stand it here; I am spooked. You understand; I mean, your father and I were good friends but I just can’t deal with this. Oh, and he told me if anything ever happened he would make sure I got the Beamer.” Rita left that afternoon without the Beamer and Charlie was glad to see her go. Tuesday, the funeral was simple and went according to his father’s wishes. Everything was falling into place and Charlie thought he might get back to Chicago sooner than he had planned. After the funeral, Charlie and his father’s lawyer, Lance Trager, went to lunch to discuss the estate. “Charlie,” said Lance. “We need to go over some of your father’s papers so I will set up an appointment for Thursday. I am glad Rita is out of the picture and want you to know she cannot make any claims to your father’s estate. As I told you yesterday, you are sole heir. Oh, I neglected to ask about your plans for your Dad’s sailboat.” “Sailboat, when did Dad buy a boat?” “He ordered it about 3 months ago and wanted to surprise you. He was disappointed when it came right after your last visit. We went out in it a couple of times; I don’t think I have ever seen him happier. I am really going to miss my old friend.” “What am I to do with a sailboat? Lance, I just don’t have time to deal with it right now. What kind of sailboat is it?” “It would be better if you saw it for yourself. The sailboat is at Pacifica Marina in Newport Beach. The keys are at the marina office; ask for Deidre Lansing, the broker.” Lance said handing Charlie her business card. “I know your dad would want you to keep it at least until January. He was hoping to take you on a little trip. Think about it. Gotta dash; see you Thursday, about ten at the house?” Wednesday, Charlie was driving to Newport and the thought of trying to sell his dad’s sailboat was not working into his plans. He pulled into a parking spot in front of the marina office and walked into the building. “May I help you?” asked the teenager behind the counter. “I have an appointment with Ms. Lansing at three,” said Charlie. “She is just coming off the pier over there,” said the teen pointing out the window. Charlie walked back outside and watched as Deidre Lansing came toward the marina office. “Hello, you must be Bob Applegate’s son; I am so sorry to hear of your father’s passing. I’m Deidre,” she said as she held out her hand to Charlie. “I just opened the ‘Apple Annie’ for you and we can take her out if you like.” “What? Did you say, ‘Apple Annie’?” asked Charlie. “That is my mother’s name; Annie. I always thought he still had a thing for her.” Charlie watched as Deidre expertly maneuvered out into the bay and then into the ocean. “You handle her very well, I am impressed. I would love to keep her, but it doesn’t seem practical for me. My dad’s business has just sold and I’ll be back in January to finish working on the estate. I just don’t have time to deal with this right now.” “Well, Mr. Applegate, my advice is to wait. I wouldn’t do anything in haste. You said that you are returning in January; wait ‘til then. We’ll watch over her and then when you are ready, we will help you with the sale.” Charlie was sitting on the deck looking the boat over, “What did dad want with such a large sailboat anyway?” “He and I talked a lot about his plans when he was buying her,” Deidre answered. “He said he had always wanted to sail around the world. Had he not ever discussed this with you?” “When I was a kid he said he wanted to go around the world. I always took it as talk; you know how you do.” Charlie answered, as he ran his hand over the fine wood. “I had no idea.” “Well, Charlie, if you are worried about selling, I know it will go in a hurry.” As Deidre pulled into the slip, she saw that Charlie was beginning to soften. “Look, go back east and when you return in January, we will talk again. Why don’t you stay onboard for a while? I will be in the office.” Charlie stayed on the ‘Apple Annie’ for half an hour and then went back to the office to drop off the keys. As he was getting into his car, he noticed Deidre was locking up the marina. “Hey, where is a good place to eat around here?” Charlie called to her. Deidre walked to his car and said, “If you are in the mood for some good seafood, there is a place near-by called ‘Under the Sea’. “Sounds good to me; will you let me buy your dinner? I’ll drive and bring you back for your car.” Charlie was on the plane back to Chicago the following Sunday and his thoughts were running wild. Was he really entertaining the thought of a trip around the world? It was impossible for him to give up his house on the lake, quit his job, or even take a leave of absence; too many responsibilities to turn his back on. Then he thought of his mother. No, he couldn’t leave her and go traipsing around the world. Then his thoughts turned to Deidre. They had stayed at the restaurant for a long time talking. They both felt something special when he kissed her goodnight. “Hi Mom, I’m back, did you miss me?” Charlie was on the patio watching a squirrel bury an acorn in the lawn. Charlie unloaded the events of the week and then he told her about the boat. “Dad had a dream and it has really been bugging me for the last four days.” “You mean the one about sailing around the world?” “Yes, you know about that? He named the sailboat ‘Apple Annie’. What do you think of that?” “Well the old bastard. He told me years ago he was going to take me around the world and I said he was a dreamer. Charlie, have you thought about fulfilling this dream of your father’s?” “Well, actually, yes; you want to come along?” “Heavens no, flying to some faraway shore and taking you to dinner sounds more my speed.” What was happening here; was he getting his mother’s blessing? “Mom, I think I really want to do this. I can’t get it out of my mind. It’s all I think about.” “Then do it. Don’t let this dream get away from you, too.” said Annie. In three months, he had resigned from his job and moved Annie into his house on Sheridan Road. They put her house on the market, which sold in six weeks. She always loved Charlie’s house and the idea to move into it was her’s. Charlie had talked to Deidre a couple of times the first week back, then he couldn’t let a day go by without calling her. Now it was January and he was on his way back to California and Deidre. Deidre was waiting at the gate. When she saw him, she ran to him. Charlie lifted her swinging her around. “Welcome to my life Deidre Lansing.” “I cannot believe this is happening. Charlie, what have you done to me? I have not been myself since we met. You have literally swept me off my feet. What’s the next move, Mr. Applegate?” “You mean besides this one?” Charlie picked her up and carried her piggyback to the baggage carousel. Later on the way to Palm Springs, Deidre asked Charlie her question again, waiting while he collected his thoughts. “I am putting Dad’s house on the market and when it sells I…” Charlie stopped and turned to look at Deidre. “Maybe I should say we, will be on a trip around the world. That is, if you like the idea.” “Oh Charlie, I love the idea, but we don’t really know each other. I mean what if I snore or worse yet what if you snore?” she laughed. “How many couples have talked to each other as much as we have over the past three months? I know everything about you and I have told you everything about myself. We know our likes, dislikes and our goals. We’ll have more time to get to know each other while waiting for the house to sell.” With the help of his dad’s housekeeper and her husband, they had the house ready for sale in two weeks. He spent his weekends with Deidre on board ‘Apple Annie’, sometimes out to sea and sometimes in the marina, always planning their trip. Charlie was getting used to the feel of ‘Apple Annie’. The time was dragging and Charlie was growing impatient. * * * They were just finishing their dinner at ‘Under the Sea’, when Charlie handed Deidre a large flat package he had hidden under the table. “Charlie, a Valentine’s gift, what is it?” “Open it.” Deidre ripped the paper off and there before her was a real estate sign with SOLD written across it. “The house sold? Sold, can you believe it? That was fast; oh, Charlie,” Deidre was suddenly out of her seat and slid into Charlie’s side of the booth. “Your dad’s dream has become our dream too. I can’t wait; when do we leave?” “I want to share all my sunrises with you, anywhere I am in the world.” Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver box. “I think a trip around the world would be a perfect honeymoon, don’t you? I know this is fast, but I have never been surer of anything in my life.” The other diners were watching them. When Deidre opened the box, she squealed and planted a kiss on Charlie’s lips. Their audience burst into applause at the obvious acceptance of his proposal. Within minutes, their waiter brought a bottle of Champaign to the table and they toasted their future together. It was May, and Charlie and Deidre were pulling into Port Denarau Marina, in the Fiji Islands. Charlie steered the sailboat into the awaiting slip and waved to his mother standing on the pier. “Bula!” Annie shouted the local welcome. “Oh, Charlie, what a splendid idea and Deidre, your folks are lovely. We have been having so much fun getting acquainted and making all the arrangements. Day after tomorrow is your wedding day.” Charlie couldn’t be happier, he felt his father in all the decisions he had been making. He was fulfilling a dream with the woman he had been waiting for all his life.

Sold LG Vernon LGVernon@aol.com	#8 of 16 Runner-up
1721 words
“Get up, Cinder,” Will muttered, prodding the charcoal-colored gelding into a liquid canter that ate up the last ground between Gladewell and Briarwood. Turning into the long drive he pulled the horse into a walk and used his hat to knock the dust off his trousers and coat. Clay Wood’s north pasture was full—horses cropping the grass. Will saw what he’d come for and his breath caught. “Damn, she’s a caution,” he muttered, watching the big bay mare capering at the end of the field. He settled his hat on his head, then patted the bulging purse inside his coat. The mare would cost. Anything Clay Wood possessed cost. Will’s lip curled. Dealing with Clay was like trying to pick up a turd by the clean end. He looked toward the residence at the limit of the drive. Weeping willows, their pale green leaves wafting in the breeze, stood close to the towering, three-storied mansion. Built of stuccoed cypress logs pulled from the swamps in 1749, the house—like his own—had already stood a hundred years and would stand, solid and bug-proof, for a hundred more. He walked Cinder into the yard, expecting to be greeted by one of a gaggle of pickaninnies dressed in pretentious red and while livery. The yard was deserted. Will stepped down and led Cinder to water, then twirled the reins around a hitching rail in deep shade. “God damn you, I said tie him!” Will jerked, his head swiveling at the sound of Clay’s voice. Curious, he followed the strident speech around the side of the house toward the back. He walked through a cool, lattice-covered arbor heavy with new grapes, then stepped into the blazing hot light of the kitchen dooryard. Clay Wood, his white shirtsleeves brilliant in the noonday sun, stood splay-legged on the packed earth. He held a whip—the malignant length of it coiled in his right fist—and watched as his overseer, Raeford Thompson, along with another man, struggled to tie a wild-eyed black to the whipping post set in the center of the yard. A knot of slaves, house workers and yardmen, including two liveried pickaninnies, stood a few feet away. One woman wept, her hands snarled in her skirt. The buck twisted and spun, momentarily breaking free, but Thompson grabbed hold of him again, pushing him against the thick post with all his weight and strength. “Hurry, dammit! I can’t hold him much longer,” he ground out as the other man fumbled with the rope. In a few seconds it was done and they stood back, watching as the bullish black man strained against the tethers, the muscles in his forearms and neck rippling as he pulled. Finally, he stood still, quivering. His nostrils flared as he glared, narrow-eyed, at Wood. Hatred etched his face. Thompson cuffed him hard enough to snap his neck. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “That insolence of yours is what got you in trouble to start with, boy.” He grabbed the man’s shirt at the neck and ripped it off him in two powerful jerks. “When you gonna learn to respect your betters?” Will stared. Everyone did. Thick ropes of proud flesh crisscrossed the prisoner’s torso. Some scars—scabbed—still wept, the flesh livid from a beating not two weeks past. He’d been thrashed often and by someone with a knack for it. Except for the sibilant slithering of the whip as Wood loosed its coils, the assembly in the dooryard was silent. Clay Wood raised his arm, the leather lash singing in its first upward stroke. A muscle in Will’s jaw twitched; sweat trickled down his back; his fists tightened. He forced himself to relax. “Afternoon, Clay.” Wood pivoted and the whip drooped. “McShan,” he said, his voice clipped. Fleetingly, disappointment shadowed his features. “I’ve been expecting you.” He coiled the lash as he walked over, nodding toward the man tied to the post. “This buck’s needed a good hiding for days. I was just about to give it to him.” Will’s eyes flickered over the slave. “I’m here about the mare.” Wood grinned, showing his teeth. “Of course.” He tossed the whip to Thompson. “You take over, Ray.” He turned back to Will, shrugging. “Makes no difference anyway who doles out the punishment. Damn nigger’s never going to learn.” He took Will’s arm, urging him away from the whipping post. “How many, Mr. Wood?” Wood looked back at Thompson, then appraised the man at the post. “Oh, whatever you think. Fifty, a hundred. Doesn’t matter. Don’t kill him if you can help it. He just came off the boat from New Orleans 3 months ago. I’ll need him fit for work if I’m to get my money out of him, much less that worthless woman who came with him.” The whip sang and Will winced. Pulling out of Wood’s grasp, he wheeled to watch the scene behind them. His mind raced. Both the slave and the property on which Will stood belonged to Clay Wood. It was against every societal convention to interfere. Thompson raised the whip again and again, the blows on the black man’s flesh leaving bloody, rhythmic testimony of superiority. Disgusted, Will turned back to Wood. “I’d like to take a closer look at that mare before we chew over a sale. Can Mr. Thompson bring her up?” He pulled the heavy purse from inside his coat, hefting its weight. He stared at Wood, his jaw clenched, his meaning clear. “Now?” Wood looked at the purse, then at Will. A moment passed in which Thompson delivered two more blows. “Thompson,” Wood drawled, drawing out each syllable, his eyes never wavering from Will’s. “Desist, and come here.” Thompson hurried over, gulping air, his face flushed. Wood took the whip. “Leave the buck on the post and go get the two year-old bay Mr. McShan is interested in.” Suddenly—angrily, he turned toward his people in the dooryard, brandishing the lash. “You get on back to work now, else you’ll all be getting a dose of the same.” The beaten man drooped, mute, his chest heaving. Blood welled from a half-dozen wounds, then trickled down over his rope belt to soak into his trousers. Slowly, he sank onto one knee, his head resting against the post. Big bluebottle flies clustered on his broken flesh. Reluctantly, Will turned back to Wood who pointed the way to the front of the house. The mare was perhaps the most beautiful animal Will McShan had ever seen. She stood, head up, ears pricked, as he approached. He pocketed his purse to run both hands down her neck. Her coat gleamed. She whickered, nodding her head, sidling against him. Thompson held the halter. “She’s a proud one,” he said. “Have to treat her with a gentle hand, else you’ll ruin her.” Will nodded, looking at her feet and her hocks. Wood stood back a few feet leaning against the fence rail, his arms crossed. “Well, what do you think?” Will glanced up. “I think I’d like a drink, and then we’ll discuss the purchase price.” He patted the mare and dusted off his hands. He and Wood went into the house where they sat in the front parlor and dickered for the better part of the afternoon and through most of a bottle of good brandy, striking a deal just as supper was announced. A black girl of not more than 13 cautiously entered the parlor, her eyes averted, and lit the pull-down chandelier as well as several standing lamps. Will’s mouth went dry as he watched Wood evaluate the child’s uptilted breasts as she moved around the room. Wood put the final flourish on the ownership papers then slid them across the tabletop. “Quite a deal you made today.” “Yes.” “You’ll stay for dinner, of course.” Will cast about at the grand opulence of the room, the carved pediments, the Belgian carpets and the slave girl, as much a part of the furnishings as the bottles on the sideboard. “No.” “Then I suppose our evening must end. My dinner awaits me, and I’m sure you’re anxious to get on home to Mrs. McShan.” Will picked up the papers and tucked them into his coat. His fingers brushed his purse, now all but empty. He smiled. Lucretia would not be pleased; not at first. “No need for you to see me out,” he said. The two men shook hands and Will left the house alone, wiping his palm on his trousers as he crossed the veranda to where Cinder was tied under the trees. He took what he believed to be his first clean breath of the afternoon. Looking out over the wide expanse of manicured lawn, he thought of his empty purse and waited anxiously for Thompson to come. Instead of Thompson, a slave appeared from around the house, leading the mare. Behind the horse came a woman carrying a bundle under one arm and balancing another on her head. Will walked over and took the mare. He pulled the papers out of his coat and unfolded them. He peered at the script in the waning light. “You’d be Boss, is that right?” The man nodded. “Yes, suh.” “You go by any other name?” “No, suh. Jus’ Boss.” Will extracted a sheet from the papers and gave it to the man. “Here, put this in your pocket.” He stood while Boss carefully folded the sheet and tucked it away. “Mind you don’t lose that, now.” Then he turned to the woman. “You’d be Julie Ann?” “Y—yes, suh. I be Boss’ missus. I ain’ got no other name, either.” Her hand trembled as she gestured to the bundles she’d set on the ground. “‘D—d—de overseer, Mist’ Thompson, he said fo’ me ta bring our truck an’ come out wid’ Boss.” Will handed her a paper, which she also put away. The two stood side-by-side, clearly flummoxed, as Will walked around them. He stopped to look at Boss’ back. Boss cleared his throat, shifting his weight. “Mistuh?” “Yes?” “What about ‘de papers you give us?” “They’re your ownership papers. I bought them from Mr. Wood. They’re yours now.” He peered at the wounds on the man’s back. You fit to walk a spell?” he asked. Boss squared his shoulders. “I can walk.” Will handed the mare’s reins to Boss and stepped aboard Cinder. “Here, you bring the mare. Julie Ann, you bring your belongings.” Boss looked up, confused. “Bring ‘de mare where, suh?” Will smiled at the anxious pair, and turned Cinder into the drive. “Home,” he said.

Sold Author wishes to remain anonymous	#9 of 16
2462 words
Every woman in America wanted to look French. It was a new era for women and new fashion designs were being introduced in America's society. New fortunes were being made in New York, Denver, and California. If a woman had money, she wore the latest French designs. I created them. 1890 was a turning point in more ways than one. The sewing machine was still a novelty, but I had put all of my savings into it. My designs were being created a hundred times faster than before. A new company in America had bought my last showing. Now I was a professional, a 'sold' designer. "Sold." That word had a different meaning now. It had taken thirty-two years to change it. I was forty now, but an eight year-old can hold onto a memory for a lifetime. I still remember the day, the smell, the heat, the fear. I wasn't very large for an eight year-old. Maybe that's why my master wanted to sell me. It was the first time I remember being cleaned, combed, and properly dressed, just before I was brought to the 'block.' A big hand grabbed my arm and half slung me to the front of the block. A crowd of white people eyed me. A cigar waved in the air and somebody started shouting numbers. I couldn't tell who was bidding on me. I felt sick. "Sold!" the voice yelled. I was grabbed and pulled off the block. My skinny legs were shaking so hard I had to grab the railing of the steps. Just as I was going to the ground, I was swooped up and carried off like a baby by a big man. I was surprised enough by being jerked up, but the biggest surprise was… he was blacker than I was! He sat me up on a buggy seat and climbed up to drive. Behind us sat a white lady with a big hat. "What's her name, George?" she asked the driver. He looked down at me and repeated, "What's your name?" "Shoo Shoo. Day calls me Shoo Shoo," I answered. George popped the reins. "Hang on, Shoo Shoo. It's a long ride." It took the rest of the day riding to get to the long lane that led to the lady's house. It was smaller than the plantation house near Savannah where I'd been living. But, this house was pretty and had rose bushes around the front porch. The horses pulled the buggy up to the front walk and stopped. George hopped down and helped the lady step out. Then he came around and lifted me down to the ground. He took my hand and walked me around the buggy to the lady. She bent down and looked me right in the eye. "I'm Miss Gayle, Shoo Shoo," she said softly. "Let's get you fed and to bed. Tomorrow we'll see if you're as smart as I think you are." We went inside, and I must have slept till noon the next day. I slid out of bed and peeked through my bedroom door. "Mercy me, child!" a rounded woman smiled. "Come out here and let's have a look at you!" "She must be a slave here, too," I thought. I wondered how many slaves this lady had in her small house. I stepped out and looked at the large room. It was furnished with two long tables, a few chairs, and had headless bodies on stands. There were two other black women besides the rounded one. They were cutting material, sewing, and pinning things on the headless bodies. Miss Gayle came in carrying rolls of material: red, blue, and yellow. I'd never seen colors like these before. "Shoo Shoo," Miss Gayle said, "come see what I've got. Feel this." I touched the red one. It was like a baby chicken. "That's velvet," Miss Gayle told me. The blue was slick. It felt like a horse's cheek. "The blue is satin," Miss Gayle said. I rubbed the yellow material. It was unlike anything I had ever felt. "That's silk," Miss Gayle explained. "It is only used for party dresses. We make all kinds of dresses for the ladies from town. This is May, Cara, and Sallie. They are seamstresses. And you will also be a seamstress…if you're smart enough. First we're going to teach you to read and write and do math. A seamstress has to know these things." For the next four years, May and Cara taught me to read and write. "Correct English is the key to making sales," they told me. I spent hours practicing pronunciation and vocabulary. "You're better than any school-taught girl in Atlanta," May said. "Always hold your head up and act proud. That's the difference in being a slave and a human being." Slaves were not considered to be humans. Miss Gayle was right about seamstresses having to know math, too. I figured lengths of material, its type, size, and price. By the time I was twelve I could make stitches so dainty that you could barely see them. By the time I was fourteen, I could figure patterns and make ruffles that were sturdy enough to step on. "You're a natural, Shoo Shoo," Miss Gayle told me. "I've never seen anyone who could create a lovelier gown out of the least amount of fabric." Her compliments made me try even harder. I loved making the dresses. I loved it even more when a client would try on her finished dress and tell Miss Gayle how beautiful it was. I was always busy, but I never felt like a slave. In the fall of 1863, Miss Gayle began to warn us of the possibility that we may have to get out in an instant. The Civil War was moving like a deadly blue wave toward us. George had left to travel to the North. Miss Gayle had given him 'free man' papers. "I'll find the 'railroaders' and get through to Pennsylvania," George told us. "As soon as I enlist with the North, I'll be called a free man forever." We knew some about the railroaders. They were a secret group of helpers that moved underground escapees from the South…slaves that wanted to get to the North. It was hard to get any kind of information on them. Even slaves weren't given the information unless others knew them. As the Union troops got closer, Miss Gayle readied us. The war's going to find us one way or another," she told us. "It's better if it finds us in the middle." I didn't know she meant the middle of the country! We loaded up bolts of material in the wagon and packed supplies in wooden boxes along its sides. We traveled during daylight and slept on the bolts at night, ending up about a hundred miles from the Mason-Dixon Line just north of the Virginia border. We were out of supplies and out of money…..and lost! It was getting dark, too dark to keep traveling. Until now, we hadn't looked like southern escapees with Miss Gayle sitting up front in the wagon, but roads were getting wider and busier. We had to be more careful about who we met. Down a lane off the main road, we saw a light. It was our intention to pull off the main road till almost dawn, then try to get further to the Pennsylvania border. Miss Gayle said we would let the horses graze after we gave them water, sleep for a while, then set out again. But, sometimes God sends forth angels. As I was unhitching the reins, a hand clamped down over my mouth. "Shhh!" I heard a man's voice. He turned me slowly around, his hand still over my mouth. I could tell he wasn't a soldier, and he was Negro. "Leave the horses hitched," he whispered, "and put the wagon behind the house." I got Miss Gayle and the others, and we moved silently toward the dim light ahead. The man motioned for us to go in. He walked the horses into the brush behind the house. We went through the back door into a small kitchen. Inside, a white woman smiled and pushed a gray curl behind her ear. "Come in," she said nervously. "Take a bowl and follow Joseph." She handed each of us a bowl filled with soup and a pull of bread on the side. Joseph lifted back the small rug and opened a floorboard upward. I could see a candle flickering below down a ledge of steep steps. We carefully stepped down to a dirt floor below. The boards above us shut, and we looked toward the candle. "You'll be safe here tonight," Joseph said. "There's pallets over there," he pointed, "and some jugs of water. You were lucky to find us before it got too dark." Lucky? Of course! We had not known how or where to find the railroaders, but they had found us! Yes, sometimes God sends forth angels, and Joseph had been our angel. We had connected with the Underground Railroad that we had been searching for before we'd left home. Joseph and this woman were risking their lives to help us. "We'll get a couple of hours of sleep and move to the next place before morning," he said. "We'll be safe once we're in Pennsylvania…as long as we can stay away from the cannons and the soldiers trying to kill each other." "Where are we going?" I asked. "Chambersburg," Joseph answered. We slept for a while and Joseph shook my shoulder. "Come on," he said. "Let's go." Joseph tapped on the board at the top of the steps. It opened and we followed him up. "I'll hitch the horses while you get ready." He headed out the door. The gray-haired woman handed May a basket. "Here's some biscuits. Good luck, and may God go with you." I had the feeling that He already was. We climbed into the wagon and Joseph shook the reins. The horses went slowly, feeling their way along the dark path through the woods. We traveled until almost daybreak. "There it is!" Joseph said. It was a cabin just ahead with a curtain pulled back and a lantern glowing on the sill. A small white boy came running from the barn and took the reins. "I'll put them up," he said. He led the horses and the wagon into a barn as we followed Joseph into the house. A young woman in a black dress opened the door. Her head was covered with a white gauze bonnet that tied in the back. "I have rooms ready for you," she said. "Just let me know if you need anything." She had an accent, but it wasn't English or French. It was different from any I had heard in Atlanta. We washed and lay down on real beds. Sleep was instant, and morning was too soon. "Shoo Shoo," Miss Gayle said lowly. "It's time to go." Joseph brought the wagon to the door and we climbed in. Miss Gayle lifted a bolt of sturdy muslin from the stack of fabrics. She tossed it down to the woman. "Atlanta cotton," Miss Gayle said. "It's our 'thank you'." Catching the bolt, the woman said, "Atlanta's been taken. Thank God you got out when you did." We rode in silence through a dimly moonlit night. Our home was no longer ours. It was still a few miles to Chambersburg, and we could already hear cannons. The closer we got, the louder the noise became. After cannons came gunshots, then soldiers yelling. We could smell the powder. "It's getting closer," Joseph told us. "We'd better head to the west and see if we can cut through." We had left Atlanta because the war was coming to meet us. And now, we had come to meet the war. Union troops came by us slowly at first, then in lines. They were oblivious to us. Their goal was to the east. As soon as the troops thinned ahead of us, Joseph snapped the reins and the horses sped up. It took almost two more hours to reach the safehouse in Chambersburg. The battle was raging to the southeast of us. We quickly checked in and the man at the gate switched teams on the wagon. The fresh team of horses moved us quickly to the northeast and toward Harrisburg. Life seemed almost normal along the route. When we got to New York, the safehouses were full. Many of the residents were taking people in and helping them move to different areas. Miss Gayle went to a sewing shop and got us jobs as extras. They were overloaded with work. Uniforms were being made and repaired as quickly as possible. "No party dresses for now," Miss Gayle said. "But, soon we'll get set up, as soon as this war ends." It was hard for a while, but the war ended just as Miss Gayle said. The Yankee women were back into their parties, and, within two years, we were considered the best seamstresses in New York. Some stores were thinking ahead of their customers now and opened up shops of 'ready-made'. A French seamstress invited me to go to France and work for a designer there. Miss Gayle encouraged me all the way. "You are your own person, Shoo Shoo. Follow your heart and learn all you can along the way." So, I went to France, learned the language, and got a designing job. But, it took ten years of working with other designers before my fashions became a hit in Paris. Being black was not a handicap here. It was a novelty that the French embraced. Now my latest designs were being offered for production to a Chicago store. As the dresses were being shown to the representative, I was handed a telegram. Miss Gayle had died. My mind flew back in time as the Chicagoan said, "Sold!"

Sold Missye K. Clarke captnmaverick@hotmail.com	#10 of 16
2390 words
“Why are you gonna buy that?’ “What?” I gave Logan an are-you-kidding look over the perfumey soaps and cheap bath mitts display. He rolled his pale blue eyes at me, knowing I’d vent and let me, anyway. “Dude,” I said, “Granny bought that crap a month ago, turned her hair black, remember? You don’t buy travel Pantene from a 99 cents dive, especially if that Pantene’s written in Russian.” “Turkish,” my cousin corrected. I shrugged, hauled my goody bag to the counter and sighed a “Whatever, dude, it’s your follicles” as I paid for the purchases. I emerged into the briefly blinding sunshine, watching skiers of all levels attempt the slopes. The cramped, tired and rank 99 Cents Slopes City shop still held Logan as its retail prey. Knowing Logan for as I did and as long as I had, he probably found something shiny in the store to toy with. On whom, though, I’d find out later, So I held up the store railing waiting for him to as my eyes adjusted to the blazing afternoon sun. It was a multi-colored pleasure to watch the bevy of ski bunnies passing me by. I loved the snow. Loved the rain, too. Went swimming on cold days, rainy days, hot days. I just dug being near the water, any kind of water. But snow usually worked its Disney magic on me. Always did. Shoveling, branding, playing in and running in it, angeling or snowballs fights in it, it didn’t matter. Built a snow-dome five years running. Packed it so good my third year try, it didn’t melt until mid June and that was because Granny had me hose the thing down with salt water. Snowmelt, slush or heavy packed fat flakes never bothered me. My grandad always kidded me: “You was a dog in another life, Casper, I’m sure of it, ‘cause I ain’t never seen a child take to water like you do.” “Keep being this sensible, C, you’ll never get laid.” Logan’s purring, yet sarcastic baritone startled me from my thoughts. He had the genetic gall to have his voice deepen into a near replica of Denis Leary’s, and he seldom missed a chance to let that timbre earn its keep, as he likened to label it. I sounded like me. When I caught a cold—which was rare—I could eke a decent Harrison or Kiefer. But I looked okay. We both did. I just had the personality of a wet mop; Logan used a more vulgar term. “Now what?” I asked. We skied side by side back to the cottage, I in a slight lead. “I saw you eyeing that little number in the blue-green ski gear. She’s cute, if a little junk in the trunk’s what you’re into. Trouble is, mate, you missed that window when she waved and you didn’t even so much as offer a ‘how do’ wave back.” “I’m not like you, Logan,” I snapped, my thews straining slightly from the incline working me. The cottage was five minutes away. “Offerin’ a hello, Cas, ain’t a roll in the snow on the bunny hills for Pete’s sake. Listen, I know what I dig, but rude, I don’t do. Chillax, brutha. Say hey first for a change, wouldja? And lose the one-way mirrors, you look like a human fortress.” With a burst of speed and on those words, Logan swept past me and cross country stroked ahead. I let him. He’d arranged this extended weekend to unwind, ski, relax and reacquaint myself with my childhood crush Gabrielle Avery he’d invited to Alpine Downs. A surprise big time this was, but how he knew I’d been thinking of her for years, hell if I knew. Logan was spontaneous like that. I was the stable of the pair of us. More like concrete blocks, Logan half-joked more than once. He had a point. The spent energy poled and skied me to our porch. On entering the house, the blended scents of garlic shrimp, a big leafy salad, Miller Lite, coffee and cinnamon rolls competed for my attention, chasing away my caustic reserve and revived my leaded legs somewhat and I wasn’t about to watch Logan hog all that free food. Two hundred yards out, neither Logan or I saw the bright orange windsocks flapping above the alpines. The shiny locket attached to the bunny Logan had met in 99 Cents Slopes City was a classic ski bum, giggling at Rascals Flats and 16th century Sting on the docked iPod, indulging on the shrimp my twin cousin paid for—and she was little more than one of many trophy wives-in-training. Sorry to be stereotypical, but there’s just not too many words to describe a gal whose ambition in life was to be another Paris Hilton wannabe. I picked at my shrimp, having left my gear on, because after the flawless day we had today, night skiing would be fantastic. And that burnin’ moon wasn’t worth missing to watch the lovebirds coo and muskrat love each other all night long. “Casper, you’re not that friendly,” MelRose demurred, her words slurring from the fifth toddy she was on. “How come, huh? Are you missing Wendy?” she asked, ending her question on a high, baby-doll-like note in her voice and tried to get me to dance with her. “Hey, uh--” I started as she got me in a dance dip stance. I didn’t dance. Gabrielle, my surprise visitor decked in pink and ice blue Gortex gear and a fur fringed parka, came right on time to witness MelRose release her dip. Trying to hide her smirk when I bonked to the floor killed the anger flash in her eyes. “Mel, darling, what say you and I check the moonlight over the pines?” Logan/Denis said sweetly. She giggled and they left for the back porch view of a silver and snowy landscape. “Um … ready?” she asked, gesturing to the open door. I didn’t need asking twice. That silvery snow-crusted landscape was too surreal to pass on. We skied by slope lantern lights for just under a half hour, laughing and catching up on life, work, families, the usual how-have-you-been stuff. I was surprised Gabrielle was a fast study, since she hadn’t been on skis in ages. She got the swing—and the hips—after just ten minutes of bunny hill practice. “Not since Daddy died,” she said, as we skied slowly to the final lift of the night run. “And you’re a good teacher, Casper.” “Thanks,” I smiled at her as we boarded the lift. In talking, we missed our drop to an easier run and had to disembark on a harder one. Though the dinnerplate moon hung over the trees, its light was diminished through the branches. The pith light in my cap served as our brighter lead. “How’s Harvey?” I asked Gabrielle. “Dead,” said she. “Parasites and arthritis got ‘im. Mom retired him to a farm animals ranch Dad knew about and he died when he was 18. He got all the corn, figs and slops he could eat, though. Dame Pevensie said he could lay away three Cornish game hens every Easter … and for dessert, Cool Ranch Doritos and Mallomars were his favorites.” I laughed. She did too, then tossed am unexpected snowball in my face, shouting ahead of me, “Can’t catch me!” She zoomed down the run some thirty feet and it was all I could do to get my eye, nose and pith lamp snow free to see her in the moon-streaked darkness. Soon I caught up to her, she was winded, but giggling that she’d beat me down a fairly steep mountain. “You cheated,” I wheezed, now desperately needing a pee, but I couldn’t help grinning at her. “You taught this grasshopper well,” Gabrielle said, then leaned in place a gentle and resolute kiss on my lips. “Aparently—“ I whispered, ready for round two when she asked, “Casper, why is your pith light’s orange?” It was shining a cool blue-white just fifty seconds before. Oh, no. I heard it. Gabby did too: a deep, rousing from sleep rumbling that was not a good sound at all. The pith sensors knew this before we did. Three things happened at once: my mind locked on Avalanche, I registered the terrified, yet determined look in Gabrielle’s doe eyes and we both heard my cousin yell in my cell walkie-talkie “Casper, get the fuck outta there, now!” at the same time. Flight mode set in. We zoomed down the mountain as fast as I’d ever gone before and for Gabrielle’s safety, we each ditched a pole to hold hands as we slipped down the now uncertain slope. Several other skiers met us on the run, I don’t know how many, seven, maybe eleven or fifteen. Survival mattered now. I stole one look over my left shoulder, saw the toboganning snow pelting down on the lot of us like a cloud-covered locomotive and I dug in deep, thighs burning. I yelled to her, “Hard right!” As fast as that powder flew, time sped, slowed, stopped at the same, erm, time. I said I loved snow, even in this madness, and still do. Logan wasn’t a snow dog like me, he’d just as soon flop on a beach with a drink umbrella nearby as melodic calypsos rode the breeze in the distance. It was his coolheadedness though the panic in his voice that squawked, “Hit a tree, cover your face! Make an air pocket! If you don’t you’ll die!” I almost laughed when I heard MelRose squeaking nonsense in Logan’s backdrop. Gabrielle was broken free as the snowslide slammed the wind from us. Her screams begged me not to let her go—and by the Gods her parka strings from her right wrist tangled in my gloves. Those popped free as our skis splintered like toothpicks from our boots and were lost under tons of powdered water. Intuition kicked my already surging adrenaline into overdrive with a thought apart from survival: Swim. Why not? It was, after all, water and I was nuts for that. I yelled, desperately hoping Gabrielle would hear me: “Stroke, girl, stroke! Ride the wave!” A thin reply came over the avalanche din: “’Asper … you’re … azey!” No time to explain. Snow eddied, pitched and poured beneath me as I rolled over, under, through and above this billowing, noisy mess, arms and legs rag doll flapping. I kept pushing that powder away from my face, the orange orb of my pith, crazily competing with the moon, entertained me in a strange light show. “Over … face …” I repeated weakly, running past exhaustion now as she did just that—I hoped and prayed she did just that. “Air … pocket… Gabri—air … pock—“ I croaked, voice drifting. I was slowing or the mountain’s confectioner’s did, I’m not sure. My body leaden, the blackness I’d been fighting to keep from crowding my senses soon had me floating in it. Jerome was tired, hungry, thirsty and cranky. Rightly so, since this was his second double in three days. Floyd perked his spirits, though. He could never get that angry at a buddy who loved this work as much as he did. And he was like a big kid in snow, Floyd was. “What’s doin’, boy? Found a good spot?” The shepherd/lab mix sniffed and turned the snow beneath the spruce a generous shade of yellow. “Better here than at home,” Jerome muttered and clicked his teeth at Floyd to return to base. “Jerome, copy?” his radio squawked. “DeStefano, sir, what do you read?” “Avalanche cover some four feet deep. Can Floyd flesh out casualties?” “Roger that.” “Call in at 0600.” It was nearing 5:30 now.“10-4.” Jerome clicked his tongue again and Floyd yelped happily. He sure did love snow. “You are not gonna die on me, Gabrielle, got me?” “Casper …” she rasped, her breathing shallow. “I can’t hold on … too cold …” We had an air pocket of three square feet surrounding us, I estimated. She needed to stay calm, but she couldn’t sleep, either. The CO2 from her sleeping would do us both in. Snowflake created darkness cocooned us for seven hours. I was flat on my back, Gabrielle angled perpendicular at my right shoulder. She was the first to rouse me form unconsciousness. I made her laugh with “Great. I come from floating in blackness to wake up in it.” “I got it,” I said. “Let’s think of the hardest words to spell …” “What …” “You start, Gabby.” She didn’t reply. “Gabby!” I moved my right hand enough to pinch her left forearm. “Goddamit! “G—O—D—“ “That’s not the word, Casper!” she seethed. “It’s pterric.” “T-E-R-R…” I started. “Wrong, Casper,” she gasped, breathing, “Shit, that pinch hurt …” A sneeze. “Bless you,” we both said at the same time. “I didn’t sneeze,” I said. “You did.” “Not me, you did,” she countered. Another sneeze. Then a third one. We heard three more as Gabby squealed, “Rescue!” Where the avalanche covered us, I was near a tree. I still had my walkie-talkie intact, but the batts were long dead so I couldn’t communicate with Logan. I used this to tap in the tree base once more. The tree trunk vibrated, “Alive?” I tapped back, “Yes. Two of us.” I didn’t know what took longer, the digging or the actual avalanche. It didn’t matter. In just under 20 minutes, the canine fleshed us out and sneezed so badly his handler had to do the rest of the digging alone. “And you ribbed me for buying that cheap shampoo, Casper. You’re such a tool.” Instead of being cocooned in a snowcave, I was cocooned in two thermal blankets and had an electric blanket across my knees and feet. Gabrielle had the same. I grinned at Logan as Gabby Bronx saluted my cousin. “My daughters bought that lousy shampoo home from summer camp.” Jerome said, casting Gabrielle an amazed look. “Bothered Floyd somethin’ terrible, it did. Got to where he couldn’t breathe, so into the vet he goes. The girls had to throw that out, because he’s ‘lergic to its scent. They had fits, o’course.” Floyd’s head was in my lap, which I sat and stroked affectionately. “MelRose didn’t want hers, so she gave it to me,” Gabrielle said through chattering teeth and sips of chamomile tea. “I’d washed my hair with it that morning. Damndest thing, the bottle’s in Russian.” She leaned in to scratch behind Floyd’s ears. “Such a good boy, yes he is …” “Turkish,” Logan corrected. We all said in unison at Logan, even MelRose chimed in with, “Whatever!” Gabrielle and I recovered. No frostbite. We were the only survivors. I was taking Logan’s advice and heading for the Caymans on my next vacation. Gabby had a hot beach number she wanted to compliment my umbrella drink with, anyway.

Sold stephanie spencer onetruesally@yahoo.com	#11 of 16 Winner
2251 words
She set out the last item, a small chipped pitcher they had always used to serve gravy. Her finger absently rubbed the rough spot on the handle as she placed it next to the rice cooker she had never used during her fifteen years of marriage. “Sheila.” The woman started at the sound of her name. She looked toward her husband in the doorway to the kitchen; a familiar bitter taste crept around her tongue. He rolled his eyes when she didn’t speak. “Are you almost finished?” he asked accusingly, watching her impatiently. “I guess,” Sheila replied with calculated indifference. Her eyes wandered over the sheet-covered tables in the garage. Each held an assortment of household items no longer wanted by either of them. She and Greg used to play a game during their yearly garage sales. Each person would pick the strangest object for sale – the one most likely to be leftover afterward – and try to get someone to buy it. Whoever’s item sold first was the winner and recipient of a foot rub by the loser. Sheila, being more into the game of selling, usually won, but one year a neighbor bought their old toilet as soon as the sale opened. The entire time she massaged his feet that night, Sheila petulantly insisted Greg had made a secret deal with the guy. “What would you pick this year?” Sheila suddenly asked him. “What are you talking about?” Greg asked from where he still stood in the doorway, keeping his distance. “What would you pick to be leftover after the sale?” She wasn’t sure why she wanted to play this game once more. There would certainly be no foot rub for the winner afterward. “I don’t really care, Sheila.” His jaw was clenched severely but his eyes were somber. She saw his eyebrow twitch in pained confusion before he looked away. Sheila took a step toward him, unintentionally forcing his retreat into the empty house. She heard his footsteps echo down the hallway. Wearily, defeated, Sheila walked back to the tables displaying the remains of their life together. It had been Greg’s idea for her to set everything up since she had always done it in the past. They had agreed to split the money from the sale; it was about the only thing they could cordially discuss lately. Well, Sheila thought as she inspected the assortment of knickknacks, cookware, books, and holiday decorations, I would definitely go for this thing. She gingerly picked up a garish seashell mobile someone had brought them from Hawaii. It tilted awkwardly on spindly threads, trying desperately to look whimsical and carefree. Definitely this, she decided and placed it in a more conspicuous spot on the edge of the table. As she started again toward the door into the house, Greg reappeared wearing his jacket and looking more aggravated than before. Sheila checked her watch and realized she had stayed a half hour longer than she’d promised. “I’m really sorry, Greg,” she said. “You know how important it is for everything to be just right. People are more likely to buy stuff if it’s arranged neatly in categories...” Sheila saw his jaw set again, edginess manipulating every muscle. He stood silently in the dark doorway. “Okay, so I’ll go now.” Sheila glanced around the garage before meeting Greg’s eyes briefly. “Sorry again.” Greg muttered something vaguely accepting as he turned away and headed inside, his keys jangling irritably. Sheila followed him in, grabbed her coat and bags from the hook in the hall, and stepped out onto the porch where the frosty night air startled her lungs. “It’s a lot colder tonight.” Greg’s voice, less hostile now, came to her from the bottom step. “Yes.” Sheila hugged herself to keep warm as she stood waiting for Greg to move away toward his car. The inky late summer sky was dotted with stars. Her eyes avoided the bright white for sale sign, a glaring beacon of their failure, stabbed into the otherwise flawless lawn. “Are you sure I can’t give you a ride?” he asked hesitantly, a hint of annoyance returning to his voice. Greg called her resolve to ride the bus everywhere now unnecessary and silly; Sheila knew it made him feel guilty because she’d insisted he keep the SUV while she had sold their old sedan. “No, thanks,” she answered, imagining the look on his girlfriend’s face when he explained why he was so late. “Well, actually,” Sheila blurted, “maybe you could just drop me off at the Starbuck’s by my place.” She briskly rubbed her hands together. “If you’re sure it’s no trouble.” “It’s fine,” he replied hurriedly but not unkindly, already opening the car door and gesturing for her to get in. As he started the engine, Sheila closed her eyes and let the memory of Greg’s young college-self visit her. Something about boys in backwards ball caps still made her swoon like a Jane Austen girl at a coming out party. She smiled privately in the darkness, recalling the thrill of catching his eyes in a crowded lecture hall. She remembered how, after a twelve hour date on a wintry Saturday found her stranded in his cramped dorm room, he had made a romantic dinner of microwave popcorn, beef jerky, and a shared bottle of beer before… “Getting warmer?” “What?” Sheila’s eyes snapped open. “Are you warm enough?” Greg repeated over the blasting of the heater. He was looking out the rear window as he backed out of the driveway. “Oh, yeah. Thanks,” she said. She shook her head to remove any lingering traces of the former Greg. It was still difficult to believe he was the same person she met nearly two decades ago. She preferred to think of him as two different people; one she knew long ago and loved, and one she’d recently met and wasn't sure she liked. The silence was a noxious gas surrounding them. Sheila imagined she might choke if she opened her mouth to speak; she kept her breathing shallow. Greg mindlessly punched through the radio stations, dissatisfied with every offering. Finally, to Sheila’s raised eyebrow surprise, he settled on an NPR news show. She looked over at his silhouette. “I thought you didn’t like this stuff,” she ventured, careful to sound conversational and unaccusing. “It’s okay,” he offered placidly. As she continued staring at his profile, illuminated briefly every few seconds by streetlights and passing cars, Sheila tried to identify when her husband had changed. She had done this countless times already during the past few months, ever since he had made his blunt announcement over their morning coffee. Throughout that day, she had unfailingly completed her usual chores and errands, but would frequently catch herself in a frightening schizophrenic state. One moment, she was calmly absorbed in choosing groceries for their favorite dish; the next found her sobbing raggedly in the car after the butcher innocently greeted her as Mrs. Taylor. But always in a dark place at the back of her mind, then and now, the accusation nagged her – how had she not seen this coming? Once again, as she rode next to him, Sheila let herself revisit her husband's actions and gestures and words during the last few years. She believed she was being honest with herself, examining Greg's every move like a detective. But she still couldn’t find any of the stereotypical evidence – no late nights at the office, last minute work trips, hotel matchbooks, whispered phone calls at odd hours. It was, she thought tiredly, as if her real husband had simply been removed from their home and replaced with this stranger who looked similar, but was otherwise a completely different person. Like the two Darrens in “Bewitched.” The absurd notion struck Sheila so suddenly that she let out a sharp laugh. Greg looked over at her with concern. “What?” It felt odd to be smiling in his direction again. He seemed not to mind; she considered explaining the image that had popped into her head. He might think it was funny; maybe he would try to help her understand this time. “Oh, nothing.” She sighed and turned to look out the window, her smile fading into the darkness. Greg’s eyes were back on the road, his face impassive again. He signaled to turn into the strip mall parking lot. Wishing she could think of something else to keep him, her husband, with her a few minutes longer, Sheila slowly gathered her purse and totes. “Well, thanks a lot.” She tried another smile, feeling as though she were addressing a clerk at the grocery store. “Sure.” Greg looked back at her with a heartbreaking detachment. Sheila knew he was already in his apartment, savoring dinner with her, looking forward to watching the first game of the season. The knowing was like a punch in the stomach. She slid from the SUV and walked into the coffee shop without looking back. *** They had agreed to hire some neighborhood teenagers to run the garage sale, to make things easier. But no one had said she couldn’t stop by, check out how things were going. Sheila strolled down their old street, waving briefly at familiar faces along the way. When she reached the driveway, crowded with cars and bustling bargain hunters, she glanced involuntarily toward the antagonistic sign in the yard. The noise and movement around her dissolved as she stared at the bold sticker jauntily slapped across it – “SOLD.” Her mouth went dry; confusion furrowed her brow. How? She must have missed it last night. Why didn’t Greg tell her? There were lots of things he wouldn’t tell, she thought disgustedly. As the world came back into focus, Sheila noticed Greg’s SUV parked in front of the neighbor’s house. That schizophrenic feeling returned. She was incensed at being in the dark about the sale, but despondent over the loss of her home and, ultimately, her marriage. And yet, it had not really felt like home for many years. Looking at all of the household goods she had set out the day before, Sheila understood her quiet acceptance of Greg’s decision was the final symptom of their broken relationship. There had been no fiery arguments or angry accusations; no desperate pleas, no tearful questioning. She had just gotten busy creating a new life, because that seemed most reasonable after being unable to repair the situation, and denied herself any lingering sadness. This sudden clarity, along with a welcome sense of liberation, was startling. Peculiar even, occurring as it did in the midst of this last garage sale, while shoppers obliviously inspected their once-private wares. The door to the kitchen opened and out stepped their realtor with Greg, an unfamiliar yet appealing look of relief on his face. Sheila caught her breath as that nostalgic feeling rushed through her. When will I be able to see this man and not want to love him? she wondered, irritated with herself. And not want him to love me again, her girlish self finished sorrowfully. Before he could notice her, Sheila slid into a corner of the garage. Her gaze landed on the seashell mobile. She picked it up again. Somehow, in the light of the day, it wasn’t the gaudy throwaway souvenir she had thought. It seemed perfect for the balcony of her new place. As Sheila moved toward the cashier, Greg unexpectedly turned and caught her eye. “Hey,” he said casually. “Did you see it sold? Kelly called me this morning.” “I saw.” Sheila felt slightly ashamed at having mentally accused him of keeping the sale a secret. “Good for us.” She attempted a nonchalant smile. Greg nodded. “Yeah.” He took a deep breath and stared out across the yard as he exhaled heavily. They stood awkwardly in front of the teenager waiting to collect Sheila’s money. “So, that’s just a dollar, if it’s all you want,” the girl said, attempting to encourage their movement. “Oh, right, sorry.” Sheila reached into her purse while Greg continued to stand solidly next to her, inspecting the garage as if he were an interested buyer. Anyone watching them would be surprised to know they were a couple on the verge of ending a relationship that had lasted half their lives. Sheila paid for the mobile and hastily wrapped it in newspaper. She couldn’t think of anything to say to adequately explain the purchase, so she let the clumsy silence hang between them. “Okay, then. Call me when…Well, whenever. I mean, you know...” Sheila bristled at being the one gracelessly stammering, the one buying a ludicrous leftover trinket from their own garage sale, the one alone. Flustered, she turned away with a quick wave. “Hey, Sheila, wait,” he called. She looked back warily. Greg tipped his head toward the mobile clutched in her hand, a wry smile on his face. “That’s what I would have picked.” She stared at him, her head cocked. “Well, me, too.” Finally, an honest easy smile arrived on her lips. “So I guess we both win?”

Sold mrwrleft@yahoo.com	#12 of 16
2387 words
After seeing to it that her daughter and son-in-law were set for the day, old Aunt Matriona gathered the jar for sour cream, the bottle for sunflower oil, bags and nets. She dressed quickly, wrapped her gray shawl tightly around her and dashed out of her apartment like a youth. This wasn’t the time to sit around in the warm kitchen and listen to the radio. This was the day when a lot of everything was cast out on the counters and people were running around gathering supplies. She was already running late. It was nine in the morning and hoarding was in its peak. From all sides of Matriona’s neighborhood, from the gray and red brick residential buildings, citizen came out with empty bags and nets and rushed to the Bolotnikov Street like mice following the call of the pied piper. The store, closest to Matriona’s house, was called by the hood people “The Gray Store,” although the color of that pealing structure was anything but gray. The long and narrow store was as packed as if it was the weekend. Inside it was noisy and scandalous. Thrusting through the crowd, Matriona saw at the left wing of the store the line for meat. Everyone was irritated because they knew that the new meat had already been delivered, but the store bosses set the new meat aside to get rid of the old meat, which had been laying on the counter for a long time… Matriona couldn’t see the meat through the crowd, because of her lack of height, nor could she inch her way to the counter. But she could hear people yelling and cursing because the old meat had an odor and was bony. But the butcher held his ground firmly: “Who is going to take this meat? You don’t want it and I don’t want it either!” Swirling around in the crowd, Matriona finally found the end of the line and wrote down her place on her palm with the ink pen. But the number was a remote one and hopes for meat were slim. However, now, having cemented her place in line, she could run around in as many as ten places. Matriona stood in line for a short while, to neutralize possible squawking in the future, then began to shoulder her way in the milk department. There, the line was waiting for sourcream. Matriona stood for about ten minutes and noticed one woman who was familiar; they had stood in many other lines before. Matriona corroborated with the woman to hold her place in line while she left for half an hour to scout. The woman agreed and Matriona, elbowed her way out of the Grey store, rushed through the street to the market. This part of Bolotnikov Street contained swarms of housewives, with bags and nets, marching back and forth through the autumn mud, interrupting traffic. Near the market gates, people stomped by, loaded down with the homemade goods. Matriona noticed some white crocheted shawls. She priced homemade round mats, to decoy her interest. The mats asking price was three rubles, but Matriona was able to lower the price to two. After than she even chomped her lips, but didn’t buy the mats. She was afraid that her daughter in law would scold her, but what nice mats they were, and at a price that was good too. Her eye again fell to the white crocheted shawls that two fat woman held in their carefully spread hands, so light, soft and so delicate. For a long time Matriona had dreamed of such beauty, only it never made sense to buy them. Such shawls were a dime a dozen, on every market. On Saturday it was even offered near the underground station. Why would you spend ALIVE money on something that has absolutely no deficit? Also at her age, it wasn’t proper for her to wear a shawl. People would say: “Why do you, old hag, trying to dress fancy? Why do you need this white crocheted beauty? Who are you going to show of to – your own kind- old babkas?” But my, oh my, how good the shawls are… As soon as Matriona tried to check the price of one shawl, a policeman appeared and began to disperse the private sector. “It’s not allowed, mother. It’s not allowed to sell off hands. Let’s go, let’s go. Get out of here.” The policeman was a young one, just like Matriona’s grandson. He was somewhat ashamed to look the old ladies in the eyes and babkas weren’t in a hurry to leave. “I am already leaving, son, I am leaving, I am leaving hon…” Thus, Matriona didn’t buy neither the rug, nor shawl and so what…As she entered the covered Market building all sorrows flew out of her head. Right at the entryway the crowd grabbed Matriona by both shoulders, turned her to the side and propelled her to the right. She could barely yank her hand with the food bag. Then she was firmly pressed to the counter with brooms and wooden toys. When she had finally battled her way to the center of the market, where it was freer, Matriona noticed, on the corner counter, trays with pink meatballs. In the line for meatball she found out that in the right side of the Market, in pavilions, was pork liver and legs for meat jelly, in the fish department it was Silver Herring and Sea Perch, in the Shoe department downstairs it was domestic slippers “Forget Youth” and rubber boots, and upstairs, in the Fabric department people choked each other for “Modepolam” – fabric for pillow cases. In the center of the Market, by the meat department, lines were formed utilizing army order, each face to the nape, pressing each with their side to the stone counter, because the butcher in the black beret had already growled - as he chopped the red frozen meat on the massive wooden block. The other two bulky fellows, with difficulty dispersing the crowd, were delivering the frozen carcasses on a low cart. “What a day, what an exciting day!” First Matriona bought a dozen meatballs for dinner. Then she took a place in three lines: for meat, pork legs and for fish and ran to the “Officer” shop by the hospital where, according to rumors, canned pork was “cast out.” She got there right in time to get the last three cans. She was so pleased, because canned meat was the very item needed to send to her sister, in the village, where unless someone shot a pig, real meat was not seen. From the “Officer” shop Matriona trotted back to the Grey store, to fill in for the woman who had held her place in the sour cream line. Sour cream still hadn’t been delivered. Matriona rested a while and got filled in on the news; in the store In “Simpheropol” the Yugoslavian boots were “given.” The line had been there since five o’clock in the morning. There were many out of city visitors and speculators and one woman had been trampled upon, when the doors had opened this morning and the crowd had pushed through the doors. This woman fell down and the entire crowd ran her over. “What people, what people!” …Rumor spread, that sour cream has arrived, however a salesperson didn’t show up. People in line heard behind the door, that lead to the storage area, someone moving around heavy canisters. They became restless – started to knock with the coins on the glass counter – “They pour themselves from the top! What a shame!” The plump, bright eyed, sales woman unhurriedly came out, wearing gaudy jewelry on her fat fingers. “Did you already distributed all the sour cream, or is there still something for us?” someone spat venomously. “Oh, as if…” the blue-eyed woman responded melodiously, putting the things on the counter in order, “do you think I am not a person myself? Why should I wait and pour for myself from the bottom?” The line got quiet - everyone started getting money and sour cream cans ready. They had nothing to retort. Indeed why would she pour for herself from the bottom of the barrel, where the sour cream was more liquid? Having gotten the source cream, Matriona again, at full speed trotted to the covered Market. Near the Market gates the self-made-goods crowd had already assembled. But now Matriona dashed through it. She had to reinstate herself in three lines: for fish, pork legs and more importantly for meat – what kind of holiday would it be without meat, because on the account of meat she had more hopes of obtaining it at the Market than at the Grey store. She also wanted to get “Madepolam” for pillowcases, but the line to the fabric department started from the bottom floor, filled in all the stairs and continued on the second floor to the doors and inside, and was composed of the visitors from other cities and village, sweaty and stupefied, they pressed with their shoulder bags onto people, not caring about how it felt. “Come from who knows where and, there they are!” Matriona sped by with disappointment and retreated. She also needed to visit the “Milk” Store where, as it was rumored, the dietetic eggs were unloaded. Indeed, when Matriona torpedoed herself through the Market crowd and kneaded through enough of the yellow autumn mud to reach the vicinity of the “Milk” store, she saw the huge line for eggs that went around the building and mixed with the crowd to the bookstore. She also found out that in this store, in the meat department, there were pork sausages, but she hesitated to reserve the place in this line. Her memory wasn’t as good nowadays. She was getting easily confused behind whom and after whom she reserved the line. To remember five or six people was ok, but more…this was difficult. It happened that she’d lose her place in line and go home all deprived and sworn at. “Ok, then” she counted in her mind, “Four lines: three at the Market and one in the “Milk” store. The line she reserved in the Gray store she didn’t count, as the way she figured, there was not enough meat. So out of four lines she had to remember two people, the one in front and the one behind, seven women and one man. It was easier to remember men. There were fewer of them in lines - they don’t like to stand. It’s a well-known thing – they’ll send either a wife or mother in law. However, there are still several men in each line and you better make sure, which man is from which line. As for women and babkas …it was a real problem. Certainly, if you put them right next to each other you can notice the difference. One has soft cheeks, lips like wallet, and her coat of navy blue; the other one wears a shawl of machine weaving, has duck nose and black coat with an artificial fur collar. But as soon as they stand in line they all appear to have the same face. Even Matriona, if she’d look in a large mirror on the other side of the market, she won’t be able to recognize yourself. Babakas just like her were dime a dozen. In the line for pork legs, for example, Matriona wasn’t recognized at first and people didn’t want to let her back in line. But she was able to remember the conversation that had transpired antecedent to her departure and reinstate her place. “Well, woman, it was you who said that yesterday, in the underground, a young man was mugged and his American jeans and Chinchilla hat was taken away, and his head was banged against the wall. Remember? Well I stood two people behind you. I only forgot whether he died or not.” In the meat line the situation was better, because one woman was from Yaroslavl, and come to Moscow for meat. She had the pink hat from rabbit fur knitted with a hook. No one in Moscow wore knitted hats in quite the same way. The line for fish, Matriona almost left on her own and all because of what she heard. One woman whose son-in-low served in the Marines, said that all fish: tuna, herring, sea perch, etc… was now radio-active and because of this men are sexually weak. “Oh, drop it, woman…That’s stupid talk. They drink too much. That’s why they are weak.” “I beg you a pardon. In our village they also drank and how…It used to be that when in the drunken stupor, they chased their wife with an axe, but there was no weakness in man’s business!” “Well, whatever you say, woman, but there is this radiation thing. It’s now everywhere. Yesterday in temple a young guy from the Atomic institute was eulogized. The wife – no face on her all white, I swear. The shawl all black lace fifty three rubles, not even a spot of blood on her face, not a spot… ” “To take fish or not to take?” Matriona stood sweating all at once and even unwound her shawl. Maybe she should leave…forget the fish. However, everyone else is still standing here, no one is leaving…Now what, no one can eat fish? What to eat then? … I’ll wash it real well. Nothing will happen, for people drink too much, indeed way too much.” By two o’clock Matriona was worn out. The three bags she carried felt like heavy like cast iron. From all the hassle and pressing she felt nauseous, red dots were dancing before her eyes and the sky itself looked as if it was checkered, like the Market roof. However, she had bought everything she wanted and found out all the news, better than newspapers. Good deal Matriona Ivanovna! She gave herself a silent pat on the back.

Sold sideline17 lazdom@ono.com	#13 of 16
174 words
it blinks, that shining saffron flashing from the window bringing me the darkness of the noisy Patpong alley telling the men to come though most don’t wait for night’s approval they come these fat old men white and foolish not smooth and golden like my Buddha who reclines as I do, waiting for death and the neon warns me the spirit of Mara lies close to my throat telling me to close my eyes that I was meant for this meant for them and to remember samsara what I must have done in the back before which led me here and now to the hard fists and the dead eyes of dakka is this the same darkness that spread thick over the village when he came? I fly back to that night when I’ve gone numb from all the touching and pushing mamma couldn’t hear me cry as the man wrapped his strange dream round my eyes, round her ears and she let me go and now even now I hear the rice calling, calling

Sold Cam cam_nine@yahoo.com	#14 of 16
2102 words
Once they’d scoured the dusty files in the Town Hall cellar for the instructions... (Henry, of course, forgot his handkerchief again and - no one ‘bout to loan him theirs, not after last time - ended up wipin’ his nose on his sleeve) ...located the switch in the attic... (turned out it were right there behind an old dress mannequin Jeff waltzed around till he got told to quit actin' the gol-durn fool) ...then sent Joey loping off to fetch a pry bar... (he brung back his Ma’s butter paddle; they laughed and tousled his hair and just made do, like always) ...and old Greer hobbling off to fetch the Missus’ bacon drippin’s... (bet when Dora found out he took ’em just for greasin’ she nigh to filled that can back up with HIS drippin’s) ...and then - with the drippin’s and the butter paddle and just a might more than the usual hollerin’ and scufflin’... (even ol’ Jenks and that real quiet boy, Andy, had to be held back from scrappin’ over which one of them the gol-durn foreigner had smiled at first) ...they’d managed to flick the switch... ...finally turning off the moon... ...and then, no lamps in sight... (of course the twins - Jed and Jeb - swore on each other’s Ma weren’t HIM supposed to of brung ’em) ...with some barrel staves and canvas off the kissin’ booth from last year's "Soft’s Day Jubilee”... (yessir, ol’ Zekiel Hardin Soft dug out his first lead mine, right here, just up the river, some, back in Aught-Nine, and in Aught-Ten he made his first and second fortunes rollin' lead in sheets for linin’ wells and soup tureens and coverin’ baby teethers) ...that Henry found leaning at the end of the hall when he was out hunting down the library’s water closet... (well, you know Henry; boy’s got a bladder size of a peach pit) ...and the last dab of ol’ Greer’s missus’ bacon drippin’s... ...made up some torches... ...and, then, after a might of marching through the moonless streets... ...and moonless roads... ...and moonless fields... (‘bout half an hour or so of it due North instead of East; but, you know, no one ever paid no mind to Chester) ...finally, at what the old surveyor’s map the librarian found in a dog-eared copy of “Fanny Hill” stuck in a pile of old “Soft’s Weekly Gazettes” all the way in the back, right next to the “smokin’ window"... (Charlie and Jasper still fussin' ‘bout how that new young Reverend MacKilroy snuck peeks in it after grabbin’ it away when they was scufflin’ ‘bout who’d take that “filthy book” out of Miz Ambrose’s library and burn it, thank you very much) ...declared to be the official town crossroads... (lessee...‘bout a half mile out past the livery, where Sweetbriar Road come on that big ol’ rock what looked a might like William Henry Harrison, right after the pleurisy took its toll, of course) ...they buried him. *** And it was only then The Revenant, for the first time in his long and winding life, breathed out. For till that moment when he found himself beneath that muffled dirt at the official town crossroads in that moonless rural pitch he had - not of his own free will - been a traveler. A transient thing, drifting through the pauses ‘twixt the ticks and tocks, hovering at the elbow’s edge of others, riding the wintry gusts of “passing through.” Never before had he the time to take a second look, to take a first, to even shake his pall to loose that journey’s dirt before he’d, every time, be hunted, snared and roughly hustled off to bang and rattle once again the dusty roads and detours that would lead him to the next (and next... and next...) “Not Here” - sent off to bend and almost break beneath the weight of yet another layer of lonely nomad’s dust heaped on his sad and ever-more estate. But now, this place, these folks - these good and gracious souls - how clearly they were cut from weave less coarse. Oh, yes, before he’d caught his breath, like all the rest, they’d whisked him up and even went so far as dimming down the night but, then, instead of gnashing teeth and whipping him away like all the rest, they’d tucked him in this safe and comfy box and dug him down and, snuggled in, they’d sang and danced and oratoried o’er. In other words, they’d rumbled out and, open-armed, welcomed him in and, oh-so-clearly said: “Yes, finally, here.” And welcomed, yes, he felt. And, yes, please, here, he’d stay. And, thus it was to be: ere all those desiccated centuries of dragging, sad, from ville to burg to whistlestop, this little town - this Soft’s Corner... (Founded: 1809, Population: 93, according to the sign) ...was where The Great Unfair intended him finally to settle. And, too, these folks - this good and gracious Population: 93 - they were the ones The Great Unfair intended him to finally settle with. Settle and, finally, shake off the ages’ sad and lonely dust. Awaken from the nightmare to emerge into his dreams. And, so, after they’d finished up with stamping down the hard, cold dirt and slapping each other on the back... (yessir, sure told THAT ‘un a thing-'er-two!) ...and gathering up their shovels and pickaxes and spades... (some gol-durn fool had given Joey a spade, but he come so close to takin’ off poor Lemuel’s ear, they took it back and give him a little tin bucket to haul dirt around, instead) ...and the pitchers from the lemonades their wives told them would hit the spot... (hit the spot a heck of a lot more accurate once Jake and Pete pulled out their flasks and passed ’em around for “sweetenin’”) ...and, of course, the Bibles they'd brought to recite some righteous “this ‘n’ that” over the spot... (only, of course, after they’d finished chucklin’ ‘bout how that new young Reverend MacKilroy’s were the only one what didn’t make no cracklin' sounds when he opened it) ...they lit up their cigars and pipes and puffed their chests and - even though they sure were powerful tuckered out from all the diggin’ and buryin’ and stampin’ and recitin’ - quick-marched through the still moonless night to the school gymnasium... (well, that pretty Missus Reverend MacKilroy and her ladies was settin’ out a spread fit for an “army of Heavenly Knights what told the Forces of Darkness a thing-‘er-two“ - and it wouldn’t have been friendly to let the ladies’ “gracious” go cold... uh... unappreciated) ...The Revenant reached up inside his safe and comfy box... (and giving grudging thanks to The Great Unfair that those good and gracious souls had not used screws - that would have certainly meant at least a splinter, maybe two) ...and pushed a little bit and, then, another little bit and, then, one more little bit until the lid gave upward and the hardscrabble shifted and The Revenant could raise up from his safe and comfy box set down beneath that cozy place where dark forsaken roads met at a rock that looked just like his darling Auntie Elspeth... (before they’d found her, dug her up, and waited for the Sun, of course) ...and march right into town to set his dreams in motion and to get started settling in. So, while the “Heavenly Knights” was busy now telling a thing-‘er-two to great heaping plates of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and three-bean casserole and corn-on-the-cob and two-slaw aspic and greens with ham hocks and beat biscuits with butter and syrup and strawberry preserves - all the while keeping one eye on ol’ Mizz Minton’s famous “blue-ribbon” peach cobbler... (it’s true, you know, she used only store-bought tinned peaches, none of them "iffy” fresh things for her but - hush, now, listen up - the REAL secret were she left out half the cinnamon and gave it not two but THREE good grates of nutmeg instead) ...The Revenant marched himself from that unlighted crossroads out ‘bout half a mile past the livery, across the dark, quiet fields and up the dark, silent roads and through the hushed and waiting shadows that were, this night, the town, straight down the center of Main Street and right up to the locked and shuttered door of Hubblemeyer’s Ambrosia Emporium, where ol’ Hubblemeyer was alone... (his Gretta left to sit at God’s Right Hand these sieben months) ...and just finishing the spit-shine on his prized new copper phosphate pump... (the one his Gretta - may she rest - vould not even to let him see the drawing of, no matter how the salesman swore the lady molded on the frontispiece vas Venus und not a “naked hoor”) ...and fussin’ up a storm on how, with now his Gretta gone, he had no time to play the “nincompoopen games” of “flick-the-moon” and “cross-the-road” and “tell-a-thingertwo” with them “dumme Köpfe” louts... (and, furthermore, what nerve to be botherin’ him ‘bout “gol-durn pointy-smilin’ foreigners what just blowed into town” and then not buy even a scoop of “Toffee Twirl” or “Pineapple Parfait” or just his lovely smooth Vanilla - any would do to make that horrid Minton woman’s bitter peach slop fit for feedin’ to anythin’ but starved wild “Schweine” and how, with now his darlin’ Gretta forever lost to him and all this craziness goin’ on he was of half a mind to sell the shop and maybe even buy a ticket back to the Old Country and live his final days with people with a lick of sense... ...but then, again, the Emporium was all he had left of his darlin’ Gretta - was a memorial to her almost - and so, no, he couldn’t even think of such a thing, of simply handin’ it over to a total stranger just like that no, never, it would be a dark, dark day the day he did that...) ...and helped him see the light. And it was only the next morning, when they’d stopped off at the Emporium for their usual Sunday “after church“... (well, outside of their Missuses, who couldn’t do with a might of coolin’ down after one of that young Reverend MacKilroy’s “hellfire ‘n’ damnation" sermonizin’s?) ...and saw, down in the corner of the strangely still-shuttered plate glass window, the large, round “Herr P. Hubblemeyer, Proprietor” on the chalk sign had been rubbed-off and, in its stead, a large and scritchy “SOLD” and, then, beneath, a small and scritchy “Mister D. Raculja, Owner Now”... ...and, behind that chalk sign, if they pressed their noses up against the glass and peered through the still-closed shutter slats, saw the Emporium was dark and quiet and empty... ...as an abandoned crossroads grave... ...and on the front door’s “Hubblemeyer’s Is Opening At... “ chalk sign, the round-hand “Ten A.M.” had been rubbed-off and, in its stead, replaced with a strange, scritchy “When Sun Is Hid”... ...that they started getting the feeling something was wrong. And it was only when “When Sun Is Hid” finally came and some of them... (their Missuses bangin' pots around and tskin' up a storm about the hellfire and damnation waitin’ on them what go out ooglin’ naked copper whores on Sunday nights instead of stayin’ put with their wives, like good husbands should) ...mouths still waterin’ for those “after church” sundaes and floats and harlequins and parfaits they’d missed out on earlier that day... (they weren’t none too clear on ‘xactly what a “pineapple” were but, heck, if ol’ Hubblemeyer’s “pineapple phosphate” were any pointer, all they could say was: where’d them things grow and how much were the train ticket to get there?) ...gathered up in front of the Town Hall and marched on over to Hubblemeyer’s, only to find The Revenant... (who, till that moment, they’d been so sure’d been told a thing-‘er-two) ...smiling his pointy smile behind the counter... (while ol’ Hubblemeyer -- strangely blank-faced -- swept sawdust ‘round in back) ...that they kind of thought they knew what it might be. But it was only when they’d squeezed into their usual spots in the, now, unusually shadowy Emporium’s strangely uncomfy booths... (Bill and Calvin not even thinkin’ to ask Henry if he and his peach pit bladder had any "business" to attend before they shoved him in between and squeezed on over) ...and crooked their necks to see up over the jaunty paper counter-boy’s hat... (and even pointier smile) ...of the “Owner Now”... ...and read the rubbed-off chalk board hangin’ on the wall... ...and saw the strangely scritchy hand that, now, said only... ...“Strawberry Swirl”... ...and “Cherry Cobbler”... ...and “Watermelon Whirl”... ...and “Rhubarb Ripple”... ...and “Cranberry Custard”... ...and - look as hard as they might - still couldn't find “Pineapple Parfait” on that there chalk board anywhere... ...just flavors come in shades of red... ...well, it was only then they knew for sure it’d probably be a might - heck, maybe even a spell - until their piece of God’s Green Earth, their tiny sanctuary, their little town: Soft’s Corner... (Founded: 1809, Population: 94, accordin' to the rubbed-off sign) ...would be the same again.

Sold Colin Campbell www.colincampbell.org	#15 of 16
30 words
So most of the books in the world are bought by old ladies, we’re told. This means in the absence of sex and violence the books might never be sold.

Sold Tom Campbell topcat@spiritone.com	#16 of 16
991 words
Daphne Sweetin was what you could call a pretty girl, a nice girl, but not really popular in school because of her shyness. She'd had a few dates with some nice boys from the chess club and the science club. That's why everyone was surprised when Jack Fletcher came courting spring of senior year. He was a roustabout and ne'eer do well but he could turn on the charm when he wanted. Somehow he took a shine to the petite young belle, Daphne, and soon after high school, they were married. She never guessed at the time that in a few short years she'd be contemplating murder. Things went along fairly well for a while. Jack began work for his father's used car dealership and Daphne joined a few civic clubs in addition to being a typical housewife. She put up with his carousing and drinking, figuring boys will be boys, and even his lovemaking, which was more like servicing him or being used. Then one day, his old man died suddenly of a heart attack. This only made Jack drink more and be more reckless and abusive towards her. The car business was going downhill because of him and the tiniest things around the house he would find fault with, blame her, and beat her up. It got to where she had to drop out of her clubs and go to the market in a scarf and dark glasses. She tried running away once but soon enough, there he was in his Cadillac with that big grin and she knew there was nothing she could do but get in and go back home with him. She had to go to the hospital after that one, lying that she had fallen down a flight of stairs. It was after that she got the poison, no matter where. A fluffy room decorated in yellow and lime green with frilly pillow shams and an antique dressing table was her sanctuary and she hid the deadly little pill there, knowing she would never have the courage to use it. Things went on like this for a few more months. He was almost nice when sober but a demon when drunk. Still the house was kept clean, she didn't dare do otherwise, and the colorful print dresses and clean wavy hair showed she had her pride, though many was the time she cried herself to sleep. Then came the fateful night. Jack and three of his buddies came home soused. She could hear them through the crack in her bedroom door. "We need some more whiskey. It's your turn to buy, Jack." "I ain't got any money, boys." "You never seem to have money anymore." "Tell you what. I'll sell you something." "Haw. What you got left to sell?" "My wife. She's still a looker. 50 bucks each." "That's a little steep, Jack." "Well, when was the last time you got laid, Vernon? Besides, a lot of that money will go for whiskey. I'll even make the run." Daphne cringed up against the bed's headboard, hearing the men clomping upstairs like a herd of buffalo, and pulling her robe tighter around her. He opened her door, swaying, and said: "These are some of my pals, Honey. You do whatever they want. Or else! Elmer, you can go first. The rest of you wait outside." The smelly, ignorant man approached her bed with a sneer as she moaned in fear. Sounds came of Jack's tripping down the stairs, holding on to the bannister as he stumbled off to the nearby store, buying a good bottle for himself and two cheap bottles for his friends. By the time he got back, it was almost over and the men drank their rotgut while laughing and playing cards. Daphne, sore and humiliated, was curled in the fetal position, crying softly. She was now officially a prostitute and had lost almost all of her respect. Jack then stumbled upstairs to her room, threw the remaining $130 dollars at her and smirked, "Here's your money, you filthy whore. Now it's my turn," but he was unable to perform, smacked her a good one, and trudged off to pass out in the other room. The next morning, when he had tacked down to the living room couch, he demanded the money. She knew he'd want it so had picked it up earlier and presented the little stack to him. He demanded a beer. She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled. Today would be Liberation Day. In the box was a soluble, undetectable pill that would simulate a heart attack. After all the years of abuse, it was the least she could do to free herself and the world in general of this asshole. Crucifiction, stoning, drawing and quartering, the rack, boiling oil, all would have pleased her more, he deserved it, but it had to look like an accident. She went to the kitchen, got the bottle and opened it, fished the box out of her pocket, and dropped the pill into his beer. As she returned to the living room with his beer, he grabbed the bottle and snarled at her: "It took you fucking long enough." He took a long swig of his beer, and a swing at her face. She ducked in time from long experience. "You bitch! I'll teach you. A man's home is his castle and he is in charge. The wife has to do what he says." He took another big gulp of his beer. "This time you're going to really pay and..." A funny look came over his face. He dropped the bottle and sunk to his knees. "Having a heart attack, are we Dear? It runs in your family." "You bitch! You poisoned me." "Good guess, you win the big prize." "I'll get you for this!" "I don't think so. In about two minutes you'll be dead, and this is my money," she said, grabbing it back. "I'll claw my way out of the grave and get my revenge, you fucking slut!" As a precaution, she had him buried upside down.