The devastation began softly, with the nocturnal humming of housefly wings. Flies that had shared tens of thousands of years of daytime activity with us, living off waste and excretion, began to explore the night. And to explore other nutrition.

When the biteless fliers found it they had dined on our sputum. Now, in the hours of darkness, they explored open sores, nostrils, ears, and mouths. What was not liquid enough for them to suck up they decomposed with their own saliva.

The flies’ genetic aberration didn’t launch in a famine stricken region of tropical Africa, but in a privileged portion of the USA. The epicenter seems to have been near Murphysville, Ohio.

The infestation initially spread among those of us least able to fight against it- the infirm who could not swat away invaders, infants, addicts and alcoholics too stuporous to defend themselves. Those first corpses found were assumed to have become maggot riddled after having died, rather than having been promoted into death by the flies.

Female houseflies are sexually receptive within a day and a half of hatching, and lay 500 eggs every few days. Their newly respiraled genes dominated reproduction and dispersed rapidly. Before we grappled with the problem the flies had crossed the Mississippi, the great lakes, and the Appalachians.

These altered houseflies were particularly fond of our nostrils, for after having dined on sputum and tissue they laid their eggs in the nasal passages, warm, moist placentas for the larvae which emerged within days and crawled further up to begin dining. Snorting cocaine addicts were especially susceptible.

At first, we ignored this nocturnal infestation, or treated it as nuisance which could be quickly remedied. The maggots in our bodies were removed and then forgotten. But the damage had been done. The ten millimeter flies carried on their bodies and in their spit and constant excretions diseases like antibiotic resistant dysentery, typhoid and cholera, and, as a bonus, various parasitic protozoa.

The night flies’ spread was facilitated by the open sores given to us by other, biting insects, notably bed bugs and ticks, but even an overly aggressive scratch, self administered while half asleep, provided entrée.

As matters worsened the diseases would frequently leapfrog the houseflies, arriving in our towns by automobile and airplane and spreading without insectal help. We expended huge amounts of manpower and money to combat and isolate antibiotic resistant diseases rather than the bugs, requiring a lurching about face when we finally identified the underlying culprit. There were too many corpses to bury or burn, and gravel pits and vacant lots became bone yards as the corpses decomposed.

The multiple epidemics were seized on by some religious sects as proof of St. John’s Apocalypse, by others as the reckoning of Ba’alzebub, the Lord of the flies. It did not matter. Believer and disbeliever died indiscriminately.

Many of us living alone died and were undiscovered for days, allowing several cycles of reproduction and multiplication. But even supposedly sterile locations were not immune, and doctors and nurses reported discovering maggots in the bodies of patients being operated on.

Our domesticated animals died off even more quickly than we did. Several of the fly borne diseases transferred quickly to fleas who rode their hosts until they died. The litter boxes of cats provided millions of additional breeding grounds. House mice died and festered within the walls, attics and cellars of suburban houses, and flies began emerging from electrical sockets and the holes cut for water pipes.

As the plague of houseflies became overwhelming, our public authorities made urgent recommendations which on afterthought merely compounded the problems. Some encouraged sleepers to use plastic plugs for ears and noses, but there had to be an opening to breathe, and the flies simply crawled up the back of the mouth and into the nasal passages. People resorted to taping a mesh over their mouths before going to sleep. But flies would explore the mesh for openings long enough for their constantly dropping, infection saturated feces to enter the mouth and throat.

The supply of insect repellent ran out quickly, and even those of us with a stock pile tended to over apply it, causing the skin to crack open and provide a nutritional sore. Bug zappers provided dead tissue for other flies to eat. Door and window screens were false reassurances, for the flies entered and left with their human hosts.

Our densely crowded cities died away first, the harvest of death facilitated by a double-bladed scythe of selfishness and fear. We urbanites had been encouraged from childhood to care for ourselves first, and harshly declined to step into harm’s way. No clean up details for us, thank you. And many who could still care and were unriddled by maggots were already riddled with dread. We offered money and encouragement but not ourselves.

Our financial and monetary systems collapsed along with the cities. Derivatives and swaps became inane once the underlying industries and agriculture broke down. Paper money was made worthless within days of an epidemic hitting a region. Gold and silver retained value only as ornamentation, worth a few small units of food or alcohol.

Scientists, with their long research lead times, were only beginning to gear up when the infrastructure fell apart. Their initial efforts included the study of housefly specific poisons, the sterilization of millions of male flies so there would be curtailed reproduction, the utilization of insect pests which subsist on the flies, and mechanical, electric and attractant traps. But the scientists had to break off their research and attempt to survive.

Disease and infestation broke down our sanitary services. Garbage collection stopped, Surviving sanitary engineers refused to handle fly breeding grounds. Police and Fire Department personnel inspecting a home would simply seal up the entries if they saw swarms of flies inside. Thousands of us began to die with no record of our passing.

Food burglaries became rampant. Gated communities were prime feeding grounds. After our minimum wage security guards had deserted, remotely situated, expensive homes became prized locations for both thefts and forced occupations. In some cases, the security guards themselves ram sacked our houses.

Gravity fed water systems continued to provide drinking water to increasingly empty buildings, but the reservoirs for the water became contaminated with decomposition and disease vectors, and the water became undrinkable. Bottled water was quickly depleted. Many thousands of us independently decided to refill discarded water bottles with whatever water was available, reseal the cap and sell the water as pure for food, alcohol and sex.

Our military and National Guard were powerless to contain or defend against the infestation. Their sophisticated weaponry had no existential overlap with the life of a fly. They set up barricades and road blocks from which they perpetually retreated until, decimated by disease, they escorted the political leadership into hiding within sealed underground bunkers provisioned with food and water for years. Neither our elected federal officials nor our military played any significant part during the continent’s degeneration. They did, however, issue daily uplifting radio broadcasts to we survivors who rarely had electricity or batteries.

Handguns and rifles were used more by our private citizens than by law enforcement. The murder rate soared to over one per five hundred survivors, many of us killed by armed occupants repelling home invasions. Our bodies lay where they had fallen, additional fodder for flies and disease.

The electrical and heating systems collapsed that fall, leaving us to die on an accelerated basis through the winter, many from simple starvation and exposure to the elements. The flies, however, hibernated. With the warmth of spring they resumed their circular expansion, reaching into Mexico by mid summer. Canada, with a colder environment, took until the next fall to be completely infested.

The vast majority of us owned a hand-held audio/visual device, a telephone capable of taking pictures, an I pod, a Blackberry. Most of us were also members of a social network such as Facebook. As death approached and battery power remained we sent out pictures and messages, and recorded our thoughts on our pages. A few of us felt obliged to display photos of our worsening healths. By far the largest number of us, however, sent out messages of love and remembrances of times shared. Many of the messages were stored unheard on the phones of the already dead. There were almost no messages of gloating or hate. Those of us filled with venom apparently died with it still trapped within us.

Many of these devices were gathered later from empty apartments and houses. Hundreds of the dying had the foresight to wrap their device in plastic and store it in a spot that would remain dry. The recorded voices are the words of ghosts.

Scott Kruliwitz in Fairfield, Ct from his brother in Tennessee: “Scott, I’m sorry I never got around to calling. Maybe it’s a guy thing. Anyway, I hope you’re still okay. (Pause) We were never as close as I wanted. We’re in pretty bad shape out here. Esther is gone, and both kids are sick. There’s no power, and we’re down to eating canned stuff. I hope you’re not in the same shape. If you get this please call. I’d really like to hear your voice.”

Karen Donnahue in Kitty Hawk, NC, from her mother in Estes Park, Colorado: “Sweetie I got your message and I’m so sorry to have to leave one of my own rather than talk with you. Don’t worry about me. I’ve moved in with what’s left of another family. Just make sure you and Paul stay sealed up until this is over. I wish (message broken off by the sending unit)

Emile Langevin in Chicago, IL from his former wife in Sheldon, AL: “Hi. Long time since we talked. I don’t want your memory of me to be that yelling and screaming argument. I never blamed you, not really. I just wanted so much, and what we had together seemed like so little. You were as good to me as you could be, I guess. (Coughing) Please try and get through this, for my sake. I’d like somebody to remember me.”

The pestilences recrossed the continent in diminishing, overlapping waves, like echoes in a cathedral, infecting fewer of us with each ripple. Except for sporadic fires, our buildings, land and machinery were undamaged. The availability of this fully equipped and undefended territory was too much to resist. A major Asian power began marshalling troops and settlers. But the invasion force concentrated itself after the ocean hopping flies and diseases had established its own invasion fronts, and hundreds of thousands of military and civilians, forcibly prevented from dispersing, died of infectious diseases in their tents. The invasion was abandoned.

Some of us who survived the first wave tried to reverse our diurnal habits, sleeping during daylight hours and attempting to work at night, but the lack of illumination greatly hampered these efforts. Many of us continued our mundane habits, knowing no other way to assert that we still lived and were human. One of these was Alfred Gorshen, an undertaker.

Without gasoline, electricity, or even embalming fluid, Alfred continued to remove the dead from their buildings and assemble them for unmarked, communal burial in an already open excavation site. There were no coffins, just ragged rows of bodies. He noticed that the concentration of flies among the as yet unburied was much less than when the bodies were in their living quarters. This despite their further decomposition.

As Alfred was rope dragging a body into the pit he slipped and the body tumbled onto him. Along with the suppurating tissue and maggots he noticed a host of extremely small flying insects. After cleaning himself off he took a mason jar to another cadaver and collected about 50 of the bugs. They were smaller than a pin head, almost impossible to accurately see even with his reading glasses. After letting them die he put them under a microscope and consulted a reference book on hexapods. They were, as best he could figure it, tiny wasps. He read on, and learned that the wasps drill a hole in the fly pupa case, dine, and deposit offspring of their own. Slaughter houses and livestock farms sometimes encouraged their presence to keep down the numbers of horse flies.

Alfred Gorshen wanted to live. He took another wasp loaded mason jar back to his apartment building and let them loose. They died within a week of natural causes, and Alfred brought more- there was no shortage of wasp-generating fly eggs. Within two weeks the fly population in the building had plummeted. Word spread that the building seemed safer than others and the apartment building was again fully occupied.

Alfred also began collecting the spiders which spun their webs throughout the burial ground and dined on the flies. He let them loose in the apartment building and instructed the occupants to not disturb any web building spiders they encountered. The corners of rooms became festooned with webs and the husks of dead flies. A new superstition emerged that it was deadly bad luck to kill a spider.

Over time there were fewer easily collectable bodies, and Alfred organized a collection system over a ten square block area, about as far as a body could be readily dragged or carted. He no longer buried the remains but allowed them to weather into bones. The bones were periodically gathered and piled in heaps, in order to make room for new arrivals.

The only communication was by word of mouth, and when Alfred encountered foot travelers going to other districts and towns he gave them instruction in how to use the wasps and spiders, giving them a jar of the wasps to take along the trip. This became known as the Undertaker’s Solution, and miraculously, Alfred’s name remained attached to it, although the spelling of Gorshen varied widely and the first name mentioned was often Al, Alan or Albert.

The wasps and spiders were haltingly installed in our houses and apartments. Replenishment was a problem in communities with strict burial practices. Over time it became our unwritten law, under threat of being beaten, to never inter bodies. Corpses were gathered and concentrated in open air lots and allowed to rot and generate flies and wasps. These body collectors were still called undertakers, and for their efforts and risks became wealthy in the emerging barter economy.

The diseases ran their courses, dwindling spring river floods of death, cutting channels through some areas, sparing others for no apparent reason. Those of us resistant or untouched began to restart power facilities, plant crops, and repropagate the remaining livestock. Eventually we restarted oil and gasoline refineries. Our recovery efforts were slowed by rampant crime, ignorance, and lingering deaths from disease.

Our hermetically protected federal officials emerged from their bunkers to find that they were superfluous. Our society had clotted into communities and gangs. The senators and representatives attempted to reestablish their position and privilege, but whole units of the remaining military deserted to try and find family and reestablish their lives. Unable to persuade or coerce, the politicians snuck back into the residual populations.

Perhaps 60,000,000 of us in North America died from the fly borne diseases, and another 40,000,000 from varying combinations of exposure, starvation, dysentery, pneumonia and, of course, murder. The mass of bones accumulated became overwhelming, filling entire vacant lots and landfills.

Our recovery fostered innovative solutions. It was another, unknown undertaker who looked at the unrepaired, gaping potholes in many streets and highways and saw opportunity. Electrical and gasoline powered equipment was still a rarity, so he jury-rigged a hand operated press to break our discarded bones into small fragments. These fragments, often still recognizable as finger and toe knuckles, were poured loose into the potholes, creating navigable surfaces. The idea caught on, and as damaged roads were filled in and reopened they were frequently referred to as “Memorial Highway” and “Remembrance Lane.” But the remembrance was only in the aggregate, for we would never know the names of those we walked and rode on.

Survival brought a search for blame. We grudgingly accepted that the mutation of the flies was unpreventable, as was the initial spread of suppuration and disease. But we tied the mass deaths thereafter around the necks of local and national political figures. In our rage we hunted down and killed several thousand former officials with whatever instruments we had at hand. In some cases we simply stoned them to death. Some of the politicians we lynched screamed protests that they had not even voted on a counter measure, and so could not be held accountable for a wrong decision. They were our ritual sacrifices, and their murders marked a steep decline in the overall death rate.

Many of our religious leaders who had promised an apocalypse managed to survive the pestilence and their mistake and reasserted themselves. They now preach to us that the pestilence was not, after all, the start of the Apocalypse, but merely a manifestation of the wrath of God, an unleashing of a devil, a reckoning by Ba’alzebub, the Lord of the flies.

end

Writing can be enjoyably polygamous. The virgin publication of a story or poem, akin to a high church wedding, doesn’t have to be the last rite. Too many authors assume that once published, their creation has no other future. Not true.

Magazine issues and anthologies are read and forgotten. Books go out of publication and magazines fold with distressing frequency. Good writing should have an ongoing present and not just a past. If a piece deserved publication once, it probably deserves publication again. And again. And again. My personal bests are nine times for a poem and seven for a story.

Granted there are some difficulties and drawbacks. Reprints earn less or no money. The majority of publications do not accept reprints. But that leaves thousands of publications and anthologies that do.

Consider the plusses. If an author’s goal is readership, a republication more or less doubles it. Author web searches usually produce the most recent publication credits, and not the sterling work put out five years ago. Editors are more apt to recognize a name (and maybe even a talent) if they’ve seen the name several times. It’s possible to reflect on, revise and improve the same story for reprint, crafting a better reader experience without having to write a whole new piece.

A reprint acceptance is akin to finding a second lover without the emotional complications, and rejection is a lot easier to handle. Give it a try.

Poets, more than fiction writers, are victims of the idiosyncratic tastes of readers and editors. Each journal nurtures its peculiar vision and spurns work that isn’t kosher. This leads to a lemming-march death rate for the publications, but that’s a subject for another note. Here are the types to be survived.

The ninth circle is occupied by poets who write voluminously but never submit. This is masturbation as the path of least resistance. Submitting a poem is stripping in front of the guests at a party, and having them comment on your private parts. Get used to it, eventually you’ll enjoy their shock.

The eighth circle holds those beginners who submit only to the New Yorker or equivalent. The inevitable rejection somehow validates the exquisite words that were spurned, although to outsiders it appears to be like sending a steamy note to Taylor Swift’s Twitter account.

The seventh circle contains those seeking indiscriminate acceptance. Publication however pedestrian, in fledgling journals without contributors and sites which publish the first two hundred poems that don’t violate any laws. This is promiscuous behavior, acceptable to a point in poetic post puberty, but to be put in the past. Like excessive alliteration.

The sixth circle imprisons prudes and snobs who feel that only formal poetry conveys elevated meaning. They put syntax and rhythm through a contorted Kama Sutra that painfully ends up in the same missionary positions that have been used for centuries.

The fifth circle encapsulates the current fetish of narrative poetry. It requires relatively little talent to stutter through a story in cleaver chopped lines, but telling a story well is as difficult at reciting a dirty limerick in a convent. And that’s the smell test. If on listening, the aroma of overused men’s room comes through, listen to something else. However, many editors love flatulent narrative poetry, so maybe just put up with the smell.

The fourth circle shrilly rings those on missions. ‘Ion’ publications- revolution, conservation, revelation- all the bastard children of the ‘isms’ excluding of course contemplation and reflection.

The third circle insists on rope-cinched uniforms of acceptability. Appropriate for children, agreeing with a theology, conservative (or liberal) enough. There’s no danger of heresy because stray thought is never let in.

The second circle is a plastic chastity belt- write only to a certain length, to a specific theme, for a limited audience; enter only if a woman or gay or Jewish or Hungarian, or ideally all four. Poetry, after all, needs limits.

The first circle is the complexity of a crown of thorns. No readily understandable poem need apply. Outré and difficult are prized. But dense poems can be misinterpreted, and it’s proven (by the writer) that literate sounding gibberish is accepted by elitists.

The poet is to be congratulated if she survives this, she’s been through hell.

I’m not a superstitious man,
yet I’ve carefully kept this
close by me for decades.
The man in a curio shop
hidden in a Taipei alley
told me “Bring good luck.”
All else was gesture,
but I paid two dollars
for a bronze medallion
of a god on rice sacks.
I’ve never seen its likeness
anywhere, despite searching
and don’t even know its name,
but good fortune and prosperity
have been my lot since and
until I’m beyond needing either
the medallion and I will abide.

The Medallion was originally published in Morning Musings Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The ninth circle is occupied by poets who write voluminously but never submit. This is masturbation as the path of least resistance. Submitting a poem is stripping in front of the guests at a party and having them comment on your private parts. Get used to it, eventually you’ll enjoy their shock.

The eighth circle holds those beginners who submit only to the New Yorker or equivalent. The inevitable rejection somehow validates the exquisite words that were spurned, although to outsiders it appears to be like sending a steamy note to Taylor Swift’s Twitter account.

The seventh circle contains those seeking indiscriminate acceptance. Publication however pedestrian, in fledgling journals without contributors and sites which publish the first two hundred poems that don’t violate any laws. This is promiscuous behavior, acceptable to a point in poetic post puberty, but to be put in the past. Like excessive alliteration.

The sixth circle imprisons prudes and snobs who feel that only formal poetry conveys elevated meaning. They put syntax and rhythm through a contorted Kama Sutra that painfully ends up in the same missionary positions that have been used for centuries.

The fifth circle encapsulates the current fetish of narrative poetry. It requires relatively little talent to stutter through a story in cleaver chopped lines, but telling a story well is as difficult at reciting a dirty limerick in a convent. And that’s the smell test. If on listening, the aroma of overused men’s room comes through, listen to something else. However, many editors love flatulent narrative poetry, so maybe just put up with the smell.

The fourth circle shrilly rings those on missions. ‘Ion’ publications- revolution, conservation, revelation- all the bastard children of the ‘isms’ excluding of course contemplation and reflection.

The third circle insists on rope-cinched uniforms of acceptability. Appropriate for children, agreeing with a theology, conservative (or liberal) enough. There’s no danger of heresy because stray thought is never let in.

The second circle is a plastic chastity belt- write only to a certain length, to a specific theme, for a limited audience; enter only if a woman or gay or Jewish or Hungarian, or ideally all four. Poetry, after all, needs limits.

The first circle is the complexity of a crown of thorns. No readily understandable poem need apply. Outré and difficult are prized. But dense poems can be misinterpreted, and it’s proven (by the writer) that literate sounding gibberish is accepted by elitists.

The poet is to be congratulated if she survives this, she’s been through hell.

Defining Veteran

My ship was melted into razor blades decades ago.

Shipmates moved on and some have passed.

What I remember is probably not quite true,

But I still define who I am

By what I was and did.

By how I served

The urge to write, to convey

is our effort to create

word beings which we use

to try and establish

a demi-godhood which allows

our persona after death to loiter

in the enjoyment of those who dwell

on the concepts we concoct.

But what we write is rarely read

by those who still exist

and almost never by those who follow.

Better perhaps to appreciate

that the ephemera we propagate

swirl enticingly and dissipate.

The Half-life of Writing was originally published in Morning Musings Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Family

Four Poems about Family

Family Treed

Too much knowledge can be upsetting.

Family records and lore tell me that I’m

half Irish, quartered English and Swedish.

To affirm provenance, I DNA tested.

The initial finding verified my beliefs,

but then they refined the results.

Much less Irish, English and Swedish

and big hunks of Welsh and Norwegian.

Who the hell were they?

And whose windows did they sneak through?

The Layer Cake

We are a skewed birthday cake,

generations of lopsided layers

baked badly by ancestors

of fervent but defective intent,

teetering atop the stale and dried out.

The layers descend into the past,

inedible and mostly forgotten

while we the temporary top deny

bad ingredients and tiltings

and frosting with crème cruel.

We concoct the next tier

with hope and even love

but use a cookbook specifying

flour of custom and bias

and spices of mistakes.

It is a mighty wonder

that the cake still stacks

and those just set in place

don’t slide off to extinction

on the icing of our failings.

The Name Cascade

The same names percolate through a family like a roof leak.

And except for the Juniors and Seniors no outsiders notice.

My mother’s father was Edward Willman

He had five daughters, so his name died.

Almost.

After what I suspect was an argument,

My first and middle names became

Edward Willman.

I have a cousin whose middle name

Is also Willman, without Edward.

Probably a compromise.

Family memory seems to die away

In three modern generations

But I balked.

So our infant son was given

A middle name you’ll guess.

A loving infliction.

Our son called when his son arrived.

And said the middle name was Willman.

The grandfathers are pleased.

Legacy

The shuffling feet of those ahead

tramp a dust-clouded pathway

in which I just see and touch

the backs of those still living

and hear the wind-blown murmurs

of those gone further beyond.

The ever-fainter bobbing heads

have concocted my making

and conditioned my soul.

No matter how I turn

or twist away from them

their march is ever before me.

For will it or not

I am always of them,

Swaddled by ancestors

who mostly know me not,

staring ahead as they shuffle on,

never looking back.

Once, not so long ago, there lived a girl named Laurel. Until she was four Laurel grew up like every other girl, learning to walk and learning to talk. Once she could talk Laurel loved to ask questions, and her mother and father and sister and brother and uncles and aunts and grandparents all smiled fondly at Laurel and answered her questions, even when she asked them over and over again.

But one relative was not friendly to Laurel. Actually no one really knew whose relative Hesperata was. Hesperata scared the whole family but she was always invited to birthdays and holidays and sometimes even for Sunday dinner so that she wouldn’t get mad at them.

Laurel asked her grandmother and grandfather about Hesperata. They looked frightened, but finally her grandmother said, “Little Laurel, Hesperata is just a real witch, don’t go near her.”

And when Laurel asked her mother about Hesperata she looked afraid too, but said, ”Hesperata, my darling Laurel, is your father’s grandmother’s niece’s cousin in-law.” Really though, no one in the family could say who had been willing to marry Hesperata.

Laurel always saw Hesperata at the food table, where her father’s grandmother’s niece’s cousin in-law would be stuffing food in her mouth with both hands. Laurel, who was as curious as she was friendly, finally, walked up to Hesperata and began asking questions.

“Aunt Hesperata, you look so skinny, are you well”

Hesperata glared at her but continued chewing.

“Auntie Hes, you’re eating so much, aren’t you afraid you’ll get sick?”

“Silence little brat, don’t make me angry.”

Laurel stepped closer.

“Aunt Hesperata, you smell funny, are you sure you’re not sick?”

Hesperata threw down her food and started waving her arms and chanting, “Haruub Brummel Sucketink Pharallos.” She repeated this three times and touched Laurel on the nose. “Snotty nosed urchin. So you like asking questions do you? All right then, hear how you’ve been cursed. You’ll answer every question with harsh honesty, and will never tell a lie. Now begone!”

Laurel’s mom pulled her away from Hesperata and told her never to go near the old woman again, but it was too late. From that day onward Laurel could not tell a lie, and answered every question with painful truth.

This was not so terrible when she was four and five, but as Laurel got older she made more and more people mad at her, even her mom and dad.

Once for example, Laurel’s teacher walked up to Laurel in class and asked, “Laurel, did you read the story I assigned you?”

“No, Mrs. Hutchison.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a boring story and I wanted to watch television.”

“You’re going to stay after school young lady.”

Another time, Cynthia, who wanted to be Laurel’s friend, asked her, “Laurel, do you like my new dress?”

“No Cynthia, I have to tell you it looks like left over spaghetti.”

And when Megan asked her, “My mom braided my hair this morning, isn’t it nice?

Laurel heard herself reply, “No Megan, you’re pretty, but your hair looks like soggy shredded wheat.”

Her mother tried to explain that sometimes it was better to say nothing or to say something kind rather than telling the truth if the truth was hurtful. And Laurel knew this, and wanted to be kind, but every time she opened her mouth out popped an ugly truth..

Poor Laurel. Her mom and dad were often mad at her, her teacher barely talked to her, and she had no friends, not even to say hello to. She would sit in her back yard reading and every now and then would cry because she was lonely and really didn’t want to be hurtful to the people she liked.

And then, one summer afternoon, through her tears, Laurel looked across the meadow next to their house and saw a young girl walking out of the woods and straight toward her. The stranger stepped right into her yard and stopped in front of Laurel.

The two girls were similar but not alike. Laurel’s hair was the color of an ocean beach, but the strange girl’s hair was the color of a wedding ring. Laurel’s eyes were powder blue, but the strange girl’s eyes were leaf green. Other than that they were much of a much.

“Hello Laurel,” said the strange girl,”my name is Lethea and we’re going to be friends.”

Laurel sighed. “Lethea, please go away. I’ll only tell you something painfully honest, and you’ll just go away hurt and angry.”

Lethea sat on the grass next to Laurel. “Poor Laurel. Aunt Hesperata went too far.”

“Do you know my aunt?”

“Ah. Well. The woman everyone says is your father’s grandmother’s niece’s cousin in-law? Once we get to be friends I’ll tell you all about her.”

Laurel bit her tongue but the truth fell off it anyway. “No one is my friend. You won’t be either. Just go away.”

But Lethea stayed sitting on the grass next to her. And they talked. No matter what awful, honest things Laurel said in reply to Lethea’s questions, Lethea just smiled and kept talking.

Lethea came back, not every day, but often, walking out of the woods. She would never tell Laurel where she lived or who her family was, but they told each other everything else. Laurel began smiling again, and she had a very nice smile, with a dimple on each cheek.

Finally, one day as the oak and beech leaves were starting to fall, Lethea told Laurel about Hesperata.

“She really isn’t.”

“Isn’t what?”

“Your father’s grandmother’s niece’s cousin in-law.”

“But everyone says so.”

“No, Hesperata just scared your mother’s father-in-law’s sister’s husband into saying that. She hates to cook, and accepts every possible invitation to eat at other people’s houses. She has two other big families that she imposes on. When she can’t gorge herself at other people’s parties she just starves, which is why she is so skinny and bad tempered.”

“How could you know this?”

“Ah. Well. I don’t normally admit this, but Hesperata really is my aunt, the sister of my mother.”

“But Hesperata is an evil, bad smelling witch!”

“And what would that make me?”

Laurel’s tongue lashed out. “You’re another evil witch!”

But Lethea just smiled. “Not all witches are evil Laurel, you have to judge them one by one.

“Now here’s how we’re going to get rid of your problem. At your next party, tell Hesperata that you’re coming to visit her-”

“But I never go near her, let alone talk to her.”

“Why not? You’re already cursed, there’s nothing more Hesperata can do to you. And you’re going to make her undo that curse.”

“No I’m not.”

“Oh yes you are, it’s fated. And here’s how you do it.” Lethea leaned toward Laurel and began whispering.

The next party was for the birthday of Laurel’s mother’s brother’s grandson. Laurel marched right up to Hesperata.

“Auntie Hes, I hope you’re well, although you’re still very skinny, I’m coming to visit you tomorrow.”

“ Get away from me you friendless sniveler or I’ll curse you again!”

“You won’t, you can’t, you can only curse me once. If you’re not there in the afternoon I’ll tell everyone where you live and invite them over for dinner.”

“You’d better stay afraid of me, vermin. Besides, you don’t know where I live.”

“Ah. Well. I’m told you live like a beggar four miles away on Mushroom Lane near Boiling Springs Road, in a dumpy shack that used to be yellow before the paint peeled away.”

Hesperata screamed and stormed out of the house before she even finished devouring her third plate of food from the buffet table. Laurel’s mother ran over.

“Laurel, what happened? Please tell me you didn’t make Hesperata mad again- did you?”

Her mother tried not to ask Laurel many questions, but she was so excited and worried that she forgot. And Laurel answered with her usual tartness. “Mom don’t ask the obvious. Of course I made her mad. That’s why she ran out screaming.”

“But she’ll hurt you somehow!”

“Ah. Well. This time I don’t think so.”

That next afternoon, right after lunch, Laurel rode her bicycle to the grocery store, and then over to Hesperata’s house. And a pretty horrible house it was. Some of the window panes were cracked and broken, the lawn was all bare dirt and weeds, and the dried out house wood looked gray under the peeled off yellow paint.

Laurel was afraid, for skinny as she was Hesperata was still a lot bigger than she. But she remembered what Lethea had told her. “Aunt Hesperata is in a trap. You’re already cursed, so she can’t curse you again. Just tell her what I’m telling you.”

She pushed the door bell button, but it was broken, so she clanked on the door knocker, softly at first, and then louder and louder. “Auntie Hesperata, you stubborn old woman, I know you’re not gone, open up or I’ll keep knocking.”

Hesperata was not heard, and so Laurel knocked even harder. “Áunt Hesperata! Aunt Hesperata!”

And from behind the door came a scream, “Leave now Laurel before I lay another curse on you.”

But Laurel knew better. “You can’t curse me again you crone. Let me in and remove the curse or I’m going to invite every one of your neighbors over for a visit.”

“So what, small slug, I’ll just shoo them away.”

“Ah. Well. Then I’ll tell everyone in my family that you’re not really my father’s grandmother’s niece’s cousin in-law, and I’ll tell the Abbots that you’re not their grandmother’s nephew’s third cousin’s adopted step child, and I’ll tell the Weatherlys that you’re not their father-in-law’s great uncle’s sister’s cousin by marriage. And you’ll never have another free meal!”

Hesperata screamed shrilly. “Evil child, how could you know this?”

Hesperata had asked a question, and Laurel was obliged to rasp out an honest answer. “You gnarly old woman your real family has fingered you.”

Hesperata kept screaming, for she feared the loss of her food.

“Aunt Hesperata, let me in, and I’ll heop you to keep getting free meals.”

“No! No! Never.”

“Ah. Well.” Laurel reached inside her back pack. “Auntie Hes I brought a honey ham with me. Let me in and you can eat it while we talk.”

It had been over a week since Hesperata had dined at other people’s dinners, and she was horribly hungry. “A whole ham?”

“All six pounds of it, honey flecked and fatty, you glutton.”

Her hunger overwhelmed her anger and Hesperata opened the door. Laurel looked around.

There were old newspapers and magazines laying on tables and chairs and the floor. Dust kitties had billowed into tom cats. Cob webs had been knit onto cob webs.

“Aunt Hesperata, your house is a mess.”

“Just hand me the ham girl.”

Hesperata grabbed the ham by its hock, pulled off the plastic and began to gnaw.

Laurel dumped several magazines off a lounge chair and sat down.“Aunt Hesperata, here’s what will happen. You will remove my curse right now. I will never tell my family or the Abbots or the Weatherlys that you are no kin at all. If you don’t cure me of the curse, remember that I have to tell the truth, and sooner or later will rat you out. But if you do remove the curse I’ll come over with another ham whenever you get really hungry.”

While Laurel was talking Hesperata had chewed her way through over half of the ham. Less hungry, she was in a better mood.

“Ah. Well. Laurel. Perhaps I went too far.” She walked up to Laurel, switching the ham from her right to her left hand, and began waving her arms and chanting.

“Pharallos, Sucketink, Brummel, Haruub

She said this three times and touched Laurel’s nose with the greasy fingers of her right hand.

“Your curse should be cancelled. Is it?”

Laurel waited for her tongue to unroll barbed wire, but instead only said, ”I think so Hesperata. Should I still call you aunt?”

“Yes child. But remember that I’m still going to be nasty and mean and hungry. It’s harder for old people to change.”

Laurel rode her bike home. Her mother saw her.”Where have you been Laurel?”

“Riding my bike.” Both Laurel and her mother shivered. Laurel because she had just told a lie, although a little one. Her mother because Laurel had not said anything hurtful in answering her. They both started crying, and then stopped and smiled at each other.

At first Laurel was afraid to say much, but slowly her silence changed to shy answers and then to smiling talk. Lethea still came to visit her from time to time, but never when Megan and Cynthia were playing at the house. Hesperata was still invited to everyone’s birthdays and holidays and weddings, and Laurel made sure that Hesperata’s plate was always overflowing with food.

She would often apologize to strangers for Hesperata’s bad manners, saying that her father’s grandmother’s niece’s cousin in law was having a hard time and asking for their understanding. Hesperata would sometimes overhear Laurel saying this and would wink at her. It was, after all, only a small lie.

end

Ice Out

Winter lets go of the river

with parting waves of snow

and growling goodbyes

as jumbled slabs of ice,

piled shore to shore,

grind stream-grass into confetti

and toted boles of trees

drift on gelid voyages

into flotsam diaspora.

The Snowstorm

The wind shoves the flakes downward,

a falling, frozen cloud that seals

the man-made lawns and walks

beneath howling anarchy.

The road unplowed, the car buried,

poor-me chatter bouncing across the screen.

There is little that would induce me

to burrow out and slew my way from home.

Loss of power, truly good friend, hunger.

My world, after all, is small.

A Winter’s Day

When snow’s gone dead with cold

And makes a brittle crunch

When air’s a choking slush

That sears the lungs to suck

When fingers touch a frozen mouth

That cannot speak of feeling

Then winter’s squatted frigidly

On all the open ground

And driven off with frost-bit whips

All those who live by warmth

Yet thought they owned the world.