Welcome to issue 
of 
Welcome to issue of
| Poetry | |
|---|---|
| Esprit : William C. Burns, Jr. | Over Breakfast : Holly Day |
| Hourglass : Mark Hart | Welcome To My World : Megan Wright |
| Who Remembers Gus Garside? : Stanley Worthington | One Brief Man : MarcAwodey |
| Haiku : Neca Stoller | Next Day Over Lunch Guilt : John Horvath Jr |
| Fiction and Prose | |
| the Amazing Grace : Patricia Ethelwyn Howell | Forgiveness : Richard Browne |
| The Agreement : Karen Mossman | |
| Serial | |
| Watery Grave - Part 4 : Stuart Levin | |
you sip your coffee so carefully
total focus on not burning your lip
I can't get into your head. I rustle
the newspaper to catch your attention
sigh meaningfully, suck down
another cigarette
I want to cut away these things
rotting between us, all the
who's and why's, all the
memories you have
that don't include me
you sit across from me
too familiar, family
my mother's face
spreads over mine, you
grunt like my father
over a second piece of toast
I want to throw you up against the wall
scream the word "Lover!" in your face
until it means something again, take your flesh,
take your breath into me,
burn away all these nights in your head
that should have belonged to me.
All is quiet
The sun floods the room
She inhales deep
grains sparkle in the light
She smiles in the mirror
The last button undone
She touches her reflection
coldness against her hand
A gaze around the room
memories live and die
in a few grains of sand
captured still in her heart
Voices of friends
drip from pictures on the wall
They echo in her mind
like waves upon ocean
She checks the note
signed 'I love you all'
the sand becomes thin
as she starts to feel sleepy
Her body now lies still
as sand in the hourglass
each grain has stolen
a moment of her life
naturally,
you expect me to deny
myself.
why, I am a woman
it is expected that I sacrifice it all.
for You.
I don't think so.
(this is not the stone-age)
believe it or not,
I am actually capable
of fending
providing
caring for Myself.
so there.
(welcome to My world)
Who remembers Gus Garside,
Can you put a face to the name?
Was the life he gave in that country,
Wasted, useless, in vain?
Who remembers Gus Garside,
Or the bomb he fought to defuse?
In a land that gave him no welcome,
Just fear and constant abuse.
Who remembers Gus Garside?
Those who found him still do.
They cradled his blackened body,
Crying, for this man they once knew.
Who remembers Gus Garside?
Those whose homes that he saved?
Then why did non come to see him,
When they laid him to rest in his grave?
Who remembers Gus Garside?
A wife with tears on her face,
Hearing but still not believing
He'd return no more to his place.
Who remembers Gus Garside?
His children? They cannot be sure.
Photographs and faded memories,
For them there is no more.
Who remembers Gus Garside?
How many remember his name?
Must the life he gave in that country,
Have been wasted, forgotten, in vain?
Sweet air blooms on the crown of this hill
transcending cast concrete gargoyles.
No smokestack plume or fume can wound
my mind's mirage, delicate as it is;
inhale perfumes on an acre's quadrille
and know that brutality must be transient.
Emerged from path to garden's gate
far from the oil rainbows of my street
an orchard edged meadow relaxes untilled.
Forgive me if I retreat while gaunt lungs
inhale perfumes on an acre's quadrille
the denouement is no longer my concern
the hand of providence will not reveal
a just soliloquy over ruins where tonight
an orchard edged meadow relaxes untilled.
Bereft of erudition I a fool may but weep;
for a commonweal's fate as it is sealed
is unwritten yet undecipherable.
The hand of providence will not reveal
why on plain, mountain, and burial ground
all flags are bound to fall from staff
to tumble like pheasants shot in spring.
For a commonweal's fate as it is sealed
in the shouts of libraries I beg why
no harvest may spring from a salted field.
In this place destruction smiles as
all flags are bound to fall from staff
and in the cloisters of a new millennium
succulent fruits in this garden grow.
Upon my pillar, with every flowing grain
no harvest may spring from a salted field
but I hallucinate a jubilee tonight
as jewels of archipelago
bless my atomic shadow under this moon,
scattered in emerald oceans of leaf
what am I to do but pick apples or die?
Succulent fruits in this garden grow
more exquisite than any dream or sucre
as jewels of archipelago.
Forgive my retreat from this poor city
as broad branches touch soft flowers below.
I have come to proclaim to the mantis
succulent fruits in this garden grow
and one brief man will have this juice.
Emerged from path to garden's gate
a few minutes alone here will be enough
as broad branches touch soft flowers below
enraptured eyes and coughing breath;
sweet air blooms on the crown of this hill.
enclosed in one link
of the hog wire fence
a spider web
Congratulations to Neca and her partner, Laura Young, on winning the
National Haiku Society of America Renku award
Well done!
Don't say that I
made you do it:
We have made other mistakes; told lies
to ease growing pains, washed clothes
to keep red from other eyes.
What shall we do
now that guilt is traded
between us: as if keeping it alive in our hands,
it will not blemish us. With separate memories
of this event, we each lie when fault is not shared
but placed like a stone one one back or the other.
Wait. Some myth
lurks in our shy response to love:
You may call yourself Eve hereafter
and I shall blame darkness forever.
Name's Bertha, Bertha deBlues as blue as a flame on a long candle. Yeah, a flame is yellow and red like Ole Man Sun, but grab hold of a spyglass won't ya, like Auntie HeHa's thimble glass, and look for the heart.Ya should catch that flicker of blue. All depends on the candle, and the strength of the flame.
Granma 'minds me of a blue flame, or Mz. Grace as we use to call her. She was wife to the preacherman, whose church was a brick hall, two hills and a turkey trot from my house.
Ma ain't the only one who use to run away from home. Some days, when the stubborn sweat crawled down the back of my neck, and I couldn't scratch the itch away (and Ma had tried to beat me into a lady more than I could count), I'd snatch up the blue marble I'd won from TomTom, wasn't going anywhere without that marble, and head for the hills. Granma's house. Fortunately, I reckon, Pa always knew where I had gone. After a day or so he'd fetch me. Sometimes, though I'd come home on my own. Either, or, Pa never yelled. From time time he'd asked me to try and visit Granma on the weekends mostly kase these midweek manouvers were playing chopsticks with my schoolwork. I'd just nod, and then we'd go about our bizness.
One thing I noticed as I was growing up - trying to ask the stars, Sister Moon and the wrinkles on my face who the freak I was (ladies don't say 'fuck') - was that growing involved figuring out what mask to wear. Gotta know how to fool folks or else ya learn the hard way. Leaving the screen door swinging, or wearing your real face, invites lowlifes in to steal the key.
Some so-called Christian folks 'mind me of a dried throat basset hound at his water dish. When those sad-eyed mutts are drinking all they can think on is getting to that water, else they'll trip over those dang long ears. Real noisy about it, huh. Like these so-called Christians bow-wows. Dancing the chosen chacha. Anyone who doesn't drink from their water dish is headed for hot stuff, so they say. Foolishness as far as I'm concerned.
God, Goddess, Joe, or Mary, whatever you wanna call 'em, can't be all that mean. I reckon he or she is just looking for folks who try their best and Mz. Grace seemed to like everybody. I found it hard to resist Mz. Grace's house. Mz. Grace always smiled when she saw me and pointed at her cookie jar. I loved that cookie jar, fat little brown monk holding his belly full of secrets, grinning like he knows sumpin. Never could 'cide which cookie I liked best. Sometimes I'd ate so many the crumbs just covered my face. Mz. Grace would just laugh, and hand me a wet napkin.
She musta been a caution and a puzzlement to the hounds who tried to sniff her butt and got swatted on the nose for their troubles. When she wanted to be the preacher's wife she won the blue ribbon. Hands down. Best in the country. She'd stand by his side, smiling, and shaking people's hands. She lead the church women in their duties (having the altar guild peahens over for lunch). Some swore Mz. Grace pounded her grits on a rock near the River. She also made go-o-o-od biscuits & gravy all by hand, melt in your mouth. Why I didn't turn into a basketball, I'll never know cos I loved those biscuits.
Mebbe that's why Mz. Grace 'minded me of a barrel. Shoot, at age ten I was taller than she was, but that don't matter. Mz. Grace's love of the church and all its goingons filled me like the blue mist which crept across Ole Man Willard's cornfield in the early morn. Ya know that mist I'm chewing on (rises with the yawn of Ole Man Sun as he wakes up each day).
Just being 'round Mz. Grace made me want to be 'round church. Course her nudging me like a friendly black lab with his wet nose against my elbow didn't hurt. So, I enlisted in the church choir near my home, and signed up for a hitch in the altar guild, at least I had sumpin in common with Mz. Grace. Whenever she cook lunch for the women in her church, I he'ped with the cooking and the serving. Shoot, at age 80, she left me gasping in the dust as we stormed the city blocks looking for chicken. That woman could finish a marathon.
Once that chicken was ate, Mz. Grace would wash those bones, wipe 'em dry and take 'em out back beyond the shed to the Willow. Friendly tree. Always dipping its fingers into the River. Seems my River liked to wander.
This Willow was like a curtain. Push 'em long fingers aside and entered the theater. Folks could strut beneath that tree nekked and not get caught (Mz. Grace had sprinkled sand all over the ground like we were in a desert). She'd stand in front of this sand and throw the chicken bones up in the air. Whichever way they dropped into the sand told her sumpin.
I never knew how, but she could tell you what was going to happen to ya, or what went on before. Folks knew this and kept asking Mz. Grace to study their palms. She never could say no, liked folks too dang much. Granpa Preacher man put an end to that, though. Wasn't proper, a preacher's wife reading palms, so he said.
I never did like that stuff shirt. He didn't like me either. Thought I was a bull horn. I reckon young ladies shouldn't be heard or seen in his 2 x 4 world. They tell me Granpa Preacher man did good in his puppydog years. Ran a clinic in the big city for the sick & poor where stitching up your spirit and your skin were blended like fool's gold. Mebbe so, but he and I met at the wrong time, I was a loud young kid & he was an ole coot hard of hearing who liked his booze. Strange sight to see 'im in his church dress and sipping on some moonshine. Mebbe that's why he didn't cotton to the sound of my voice, done snuck up on 'im too many dang times.
Never forgot that day when he stood on his I'm better than you all pedestal, and talked to the congregation about spiritual medicine shows, huh, that's what he called it, saying beware the snake oil man who talks of god but don't quote the bible! Beware those folks who play games who play games with the spirt, such as reading palms. Folks swore Granpa Preacher man looked like an angel that day, raisin' his arms to the sky so everyone could gasp upon his pretty white robe.
Well, from where I was sitting, next to Mz. Grace in the front pew, Ole Man Sun touched HER face, like a hand laid on the shoulder. I knew who the angel was as she looked up at the Preacher man like she had just lost her best friend. I was hit in the head with a 2 x 4 of wisdom right then and there - Granpa was a mean ole man. Anywho, Mz. Grace stopped reading palms after that lecture (Sermon ya say? Lecture, I tell ya.), but like a mule determined to sit awhile, she kept mixing, measuring and bottling her home brews. Ain't no one gonna keep her from he'ping folks.
And her cures did the trick. Like that day Tim Tucker took two toes off with his axe. His. Hobbled down the street to Mz. Grace crying, tool in one hand, toes in the other. First thing Mz. Grace did was make 'im throw that axe in the River.
"If ya don't know how to use it," she muttered under her breath, "shouldn't have it."
Tim Tucker was too worn out with his troubles to resist. He flung that axe so hard it flew up in the air like a helicopter's wing. Blade gleamed silver in the sunlight, so folks believed, and it dropped into the River like a dead man's body. Ain't no one's found it yet. Tim Tucker fell to the ground as his axe fell through the water. Yanking 'im from the ground, like a 10 pound sack of flour (child's play, I've seen her do it), Mz. Grace carried 'im through the touching fingers of the Willow. Then she propped 'im up 'gainst the trunk. A willow tree 'minds me of a skinny dancer. The wood bends, but you can almost count the brass knuckles inside. Anywho, Mz. Grace took Tim's toes and, after putting 'em back where they belonged, rubbed some secret herbal ointment on the wounds. Then she held on. Held those toes, and feet, in her large warm hands half a day and night. Her ointments were locked in the small black closet hidden near the sink & washboard. She wore the key which locked and unlocked that closet 'round her neck.
So, Tim Tucker walked home, his toes and his feet getting re-acquainted.
Granpa Preacher man was fit to be tied 'bout Mz. Grace spending so much time with Tim Tucker. Her foolishness he called it. Mz. Grace couldn't be bothered by what Granpa thought. She stopped reading palms for 'im, but she wasn't gonna stop he'ping folks.
Later on, when I asked her about Tim Tucker and his toes (she was famous now, at least in our neck of the woods), Mz. Grace patted me on the shoulder, and said folks do like to make things up.
Then there was the time Amy D. (D stood for dear heart, darling, dickens, dam) was bending in two. Made you think of a steel bar broken by a sideshow hound. Amy D. couldn't stop holding her tummy. Mz. Grace made her lie down on a blanket Mz. Grace had thrown on the ground underneath the Willow. Taking another ointment from that small black closet, she rubbed it on Amy D's bare stomach. Round & round. Clucking like a mother hen. Amy D finally threw up the poison that was making her sick, right onto the blanket. Mz. Grace burned that blanket, poison & all. Amy D was mostly craving comfort, Mz. Grace told me later. It was the stink of the ointment that made her puke. As for the burning of the blanket, well, folks love a play, so Mz. Grace was ready to he'p out.
Without it being said, folks in our part of the country, knew Mz. Grace was a voudou woman always ready to he'p you out. Her price was a home cook meal, either for herself, or some ole fleabag in your own hometown. Mz. Grace was determine to he'p the homeless.
She'd tell me stories about her youth, as we sat
underneath the Willow, right around the time Ole Man Sun was
fixing to snooze. I knew she still cast the bones, but mostly for
herself. After she was finished with her seeing(s) she made dolls
out of 'em bones. Sewed some clothes on 'em. Dang, she even hung
'em dolls in the pine trees near her home.<p>
I 'member the last time I saw her, right 'fore she died, she read
my palm. I had to pull her arm and whatever else I could grab
hold of to get her to do it.
"Bertha, your love line is strong, so
strong," she muttered,running a finger down my outstretched
palm.<p>
"What's that mean," I croaked.
I still catch the twinkle in Mz. Grace's eye as I look at the stars at night.
"When you love, you'll love," she replied, raising her hands up in the air.
She never lied, Mz. Grace. That love line has me playing leap frog from the frying pan into the fire more than it's worth. Men ain't no good. I prefer womenfolk.
Wasn't until recently that I dug up another of Mz. Grace's secrets, personal bones she'd call 'em. When she was a young woman Mz. Grace led the church women in some secret dances, 'cept everyone in the community knew about 'em, but it was kept quiet. If the church kings, (hmn, never did like a place where there ain't no queen) pulled their heads out of the sand and looked at the dance, they'd run Mz. Grace out of the church for sheer impudence. No one wanted that so the word was out, just hush about the dance. Mz. Grace and the women became air. I reckon even Granpa Preacher man backed her up on this one, cos he never said a word. Hmn, wonder why, mebbe he got cranky with age.
When I close my eyes, I can almost see Mz. Grace and the women down near the Willow tree, dancing in the field near the River. Musta made Sister Moon happier than a clean pig that night. Mebbe the women danced nekked. Whoa Nellie! My eyes always flew open at this point. Mz. Grace may have walked on the so called wrong side of the street, but she did it clothed.
Can't he'p wondering why she married a preacher man. Well, shouldn't wonder she was quite the Christian lady. But why'd that ole coot marry Mz. Grace? Was he hoping to save her soul? No saving needed, she was perfect. I'll wrassle anyone who says different.
When Mz. Grace died I laid in bed and cried for two days. Threw things at Ma when she tried to come into my room. She thought Mz. Grace was crazy. Never forgave Ma for that one.
And could anyone tell me what got into the local preacher man Rev. String-'Em-Up-And-Leave-'Em-For-Satan-Jones? He was a friend of Granpa Preacher man but no friend of mine. After Mz. Grace died he ran out onto my stretch of basketball cement and grabbed my arm. Wouldn't stop yammering. Spoiled my shot, he did (was gonna sink a ball in the basket, hole in one). Kept going on 'bout Mz. Grace being evil, my needing to read the bible, not straying from the path of god, blah, blah. All I could think on, listening to that fool, was the people Mz. Grace had he'ped so I kicked Rev. String-'Em-Up-And-Leave-'Em-For-Satan-Jones in the shins and got the hell out of Dodge.
Not long after, I was singing in the church choir when an idea came sneaking up from behind and slapped me upside the head. I looked up from my hymn book and said "I don't belong here," and left.
Ain't been back since. Ma tried to whip my hide for that, but I hid until she cooled down.
James McAllan slumped back onto the hard, wooden bed that for the last night of his life would offer no more comfort than it ever had. No comfort for him in his nightmared nights infested by the dragons that plagued his mind each night since he'd been jailed.
McAllan had committed a heinous crime. A vicious, unwarranted crime against his wife and daughter. After a marriage of 13 years, through which there had been a lot of love and, subsequently, a lot of hurt, he had run out of love. In fact, he had almost run out of sanity. One night, after a prolonged argument in which the word divorce had been mentioned several times, the manipulative woman had left him sitting in his house, alone. She had taken their daughter, a girl of little more than 5 years, and gone to stay in a motel-room. Several days later she had decided the argument was futile, and decided to move back in. Just like that. Into his house, his bed, as if nothing had ever happened.
This intrusion was the last straw for him so, that night, he had stabbed his wife seven times while she was asleep. He had become enraged, seeing only red and the intruders into his life, into which his daughter would grow. He stabbed her three times before, in a moment of pause, he had woken from his vicious haze. He called the hospital, guided the ambulance-men into his house, pointed at his child's body with his blood-stained hand. There had been no question.
Through the courts he went, especially quickly for the case became quite notorious to the public. He was sentenced to death. On Death Row in his particular state, however, there was a ten-year backlog, through which he had survived with the torture that he openly admitted to deserving, the torture of memory.
After a while it had become such that he feared closing his eyes because his eyelids would bring back the image of his hand, the blood dried and crusty over it, pointing at his daughter, lying on the bed, her few last breaths coming painfully, harshly. And then they stopped.
For the first few years he had cried himself to sleep, or just not slept for the fear of the nightmares that haunted him. After that it had become a way of life. He had become accustomed to seeing her lying on the bed, the blue sheets turned green with dried blood, and red with the fresh. Sometimes she just lay, gasping or completely motionless and silent. Others he would move towards her and she would sit up in the bed, he could see the blood at her lips, and she would cry, tears streaking through the stain of blood that had run down her cheek.
Tonight was the last night. It was the last time he would ever have to look at her face, her limp body. Knowing that, tomorrow, he would die was a relief because the torture would be ended. God knew he had repented for his sin. Perhaps, though, he had not for his biggest sin, the final sin unto himself, was not knowing why he had done it. His wife was in her forties, in a winding-down career.
She had forced him to kill her, for which he had few regrets. Diane, his daughter, had done nothing and had still all her life to live. He had lived with the nightmares and, every time he woke up, he had asked himself "Why?" Not, like some of the strange people on Death Row, why had it happened to him, but why it had happened to her. Why had she been afflicted with the brutality of his actions?
Anyone but her.
It was too late, however. The actions were done and the question, whenever it was asked, was left to hang, echoing and unanswered in his mind. His death would not provide an answer to the question.
The question could never be answered. His death would merely stop him from asking it.
McAllan lay back in the bed, a tear rolling down into his hair. He closed his eyes and, as had always happened, saw her. Slowly, with a steady stream of tears rolling from his eyes, but no sound escaping his lips, he fell asleep.
The buzzer sounded. Ever single day in this place the buzzer had sounded to awaken him. This morning, however, it sounded different, like it was there to set him free. He woke from the first half-way pleasant dream he had been granted in many years. A prison guard, a decent man by the name of Fellows, walked into the prison and took his arm. "Come on James. It's breakfast time."
He rose from his bed and made his way, after changing, to the bland prisoner's canteen where a special meal had been laid out for him, as was the custom for some of these places. He ate well, his last meal of bacon and eggs, a wish come-true for many prisoners, and he thanked the cook.
The warden approached him and said, with the trained-but-false emotion in his voice, "It is time."
McAllan went willingly, with a life in his step that had been lost for 10 years. To the room.
It had been decided he would die by electric chair, not always efficient but rarely doing anything less than achieving its task. It took around 20 minutes to strap him into it, all the sponge pads and leather straps. A minister was present, reading a sermon, to which McAllan paid no heed for he had never been a religious man. Slowly, the contraption was cranked up, charged, and awaited the order of the executioner.
The room was deserted except for him. Behind a glass panel stood the warden, two guards, and the minister, who finally waved a blessing to him. McAllan, however, was looking at the warden, who's eyes had been darting away every time they made contact, until now. They stared at each another for several moments, before McAllan swallowed with a nervous animosity, and nodded to the warden.
Then he rested his head back and smiled.
"Now," was the last word uttered.
There was a sharp pain then semi-consciousness.
McAllan saw his daughter. She sat up now, looking sincere, and
beautiful without the stains of the wounds. As his life drew to a
close, she smiled and said, "I forgive you."
The agreement is what I had with Arkash Mohammed, an Arab diplomat working at the embassy where I was a translator. I knew he would have checked into my background before approaching me.
He was looking for a wife who could speak Arabic fluently. Someone prepared to run his house; someone intelligent, respectful and used to a quiet lifestyle. It seemed I fitted the bill. In return I would live a life of luxury, own the car of my choice and have an expense account. He pointed out that we would have separate bedrooms and I would be expected to conduct myself in a manner fitting that of a diplomat's wife. Should I at anytime break the rules of the agreement, I would be asked to leave, and papers drawn up for an immediate annulment.
I was lonely. Having been in London for a couple of years my social life was severely lacking. I'm not the kind of person who mixes well, the kind who was probably destined to become an old maid.
My parents had me late in life and I was an only child. When they died I felt at a loss at what to do with my life. My old friend Fergul was going to London and on a spur of the moment decision I went with him.
Arkash asked me about Fergul as he was the only consistent man in my life. His life was complicated and I didn't care much for the company he kept, but I was eager for the agreement to work, so said nothing about my fears.
Arkash Mohammed was also a very attractive. He had black wavy hair, dark good looks and incredible green eyes. I had done a little work for him through the embassy and on a social level he was a very interesting man. I always liked his quiet concise manner. For a mouse-like person like me, he was quite a catch.
Fergul thought I was quite crazy to even consider it, but I pointed out that his own beliefs were crazy too.
We had a quiet ceremony and for eight months our agreement worked well. Arkash couldn't have been more charming or gracious. His house was wonderful and the car I drove was the best of its kind, but there was always something lacking from our relationship.
Our agreement was business and that was how he conducted himself with me. I craved affection and went back to Fergul, who, for all his faults was a very affectionate man. But there wasn't an awful lot going on in my life that Arkash didn't know about.
"It is not acceptable, Caitlin," he told me quietly one evening, "You agreed not to see him any more. He is anti-British, and attracts attention to himself."
I suppose I was naïve when it came to Fergul's politics. Arkash was a fair-minded man and I found it difficult to refuse him anything. But I really needed Fergul; he was my one true friend.
"Please Arkash, I can be discreet. Fergul doesn't involve me with anything he's doing." It was a bad choice of words.
"An what might he be doing?" he asked, raising one eyebrow slightly.
"I just mean that Fergul and I are old friends. It's politically innocent, I swear to you."
"I don't need your oath, Caitlin, your word will do. I am not happy with you friendship, but I trust you.."
"Thank you," I said. If Arkash were a real husband, I wouldn't have needed Fergul at all.
"Don't thank me. All I ask is for you to remember our agreement. Make sure you are discreet.
I suppose, if I were honest with myself, Fergul's activities did worry me. There were things in his house that should never have been there. I didn't like to ask, perhaps I should have done.
That awful day I had gone round to see him, only he wasn't there. I let myself in with a key he had given me some time ago. I didn't know that Fergul had been arrested that morning and when the police came to search his house, there was I.
As Arkash was out of the country, I phoned his solicitor, who posted bail for me. He had contacted Arkash who was returning immediately. It was the longest day of my life. Not only had I broken our agreement, I had shamed him and was deeply embarrassed.
I stood as Arkash entered the room and looked at him nervously. Foolishly, feeling compelled to speak, I stuttered, "I can explain..."
His answer was a sharp slap to my face. He'd never raised his voice in anger let alone his hand, I was shocked. For a moment we stared at one another, then he said, "How quickly you have forgotten, Caitlin."
"I haven't," I said, forcing back tears.
"You have embarrassed me. This isn't what I expected from you! Do you know the police have questioned me. I was accused of bringing arms into the country!"
"I'm sorry," I told him, unable to meet his eyes.
"This kind of scandal is atrocious! You must have had some idea what was going on." He was barely controlling his anger.
"I'm sorry, I'm so ashamed."
"You're ashamed?"
"Arkash, please..." I begged. I couldn't sink any lower. "I've made a mistake, please forgive me."
"Do you expect me to?" he asked, looking at me disdainfully. Not being able to stand the look on his face any more, my sorrow turned to anger.
"No, I wouldn't expect anything from you." He stared at me for a moment. It was then that I began to pick up my shattered pride. "I shall go and pack." Tears were close and somehow I managed to walk away without letting them show.
"Wait," he commanded as I reached the door. But it was too late, I wasn't going to beg any more.
"No," I retorted, meeting his eyes at last. "You wait. I've made a dreadful mistake I know that. You are so quick to tell me I'm wrong." My unhappiness was beginning to show and before I could stop myself, I blurted: "Have I ever complained about this damned agreement? All I ever wanted was to be a real wife..."
He was looking at me as if I was just another hysterical woman. Well, perhaps I was.
I packed a few of the things I had brought with me and left him a note. No doubt he would send me some papers to sign. I couldn't even bring myself to take the car even though it was legally mine. I had no where else to go, so I went to Fergul's house.
I really didn't know what to do with myself. I'd given up my job at the embassy when I married. All I did these days was entertain Arkash's guests and run his house. I enjoyed that, it was my life. Now I was utterly miserable and I missed Arkash more than I ever thought I could.
Arkash Mohammed was a proud man and if he had wanted me back he would never come and ask. As the week passed, I waited to be served with divorce papers. They never came.
The annual embassy dinner was coming up and I knew Arkash couldn't admit his wife had left him. There had been so many rumours when we got married and until now they'd proved groundless. My absence at the dinner would start them up again and cause him much embarrassment.
I was a little late as most people were already seated. I prayed I was doing the right thing. Announcing myself as Mrs Mohammed I was taken to the empty seat next to Arkash. I could see what people had been thinking by the surprise on their faces.
Arkash stood politely for me to sit down, "I'm sorry I'm late," I said quietly, but loud enough for people to hear. By the look in his eyes, I knew I had done the right thing.
Under the table I felt his hand touch my knee and looked at him with surprise. A barely noticeable smile touched his lips and I put my hand over his and gently squeezed.
Maybe now we could have a proper marriage and not just an agreement.
But how? The technique is far too crude for a modern mine, and it would have taken hundreds of years for the sedimentary rock to form over the entrance. I dip my head over the com system and hail Samuel. "Samuel? What do you reckon?"
His voice is breathless, and the music has been switched off. "It's man-made, Sol, it's definitely man-made. But how? It must have been done before the limestone formed, and there wasn't even the technology to make this sort of thing that long ago. We're talking medieval times here, Sol."
I nod. "Must have been." I look down at the most recent subsidence graph, and my eyebrows lift in surprise. "Bloody hell," I breath. "The ground's practically tearing it along. What's causing it all?"
"I don't know," replies Samuel. "But I don't reckon it's subsidence. Haven't you noticed how smooth the walls are? In an area of such high subsidence, there should be cracks. Nosiree - the ground's moving, but it isn't subsidence."
We continue down the tunnel, which bends sharply to the right, and pick up speed as it straightens out. Beyond the silhouette of Samuel's manta-ray ship, I catch a glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel - a single point of green luminescence, flickering, wavering, calling with silent temptation in the darkness. As we draw closer to the glowing nimbus of sapphire, it becomes apparent that it is, in fact, a view into a widening of the tunnel - a cavern of sorts - and something is burning inside...
The walls of the tunnel roll away, and I am suddenly thrown into the unimaginably vast chamber of emerald flame. The walls seem encrusted with the finest green sapphires I have ever seen, basking in the radiant glow of a thousand invisible torches. I kill the lights; they are not needed here. The vast cavern is illuminated; ten miles underwater, and we have light.
"Sol? Sol? Sol...!"
I suddenly realise that I am being hailed. Hitting the com button, I reply:
"What?"
"Sol, what the hell is going on?"
"Well, we're in some sort of underwater cavern..."
No we're bloody well not! There's no water - no bloody water!"
I look outside the cockpit; he is correct. The pressure gauges read one atmosphere; we are descending at a rate of two knots through normal, breathable, impossible air, caught in a brilliant beam of emerald light, cushioned by the sparkling ray of intangible green, descending slowly in the capable hands of this incomprehensible force.
I am caught in the wonderment of the force; I am not frightened, but merely curious. We descend for almost twenty-nine minutes; even in my state of awe and disbelief, it occurs to me that we must have fallen through at least a mile. The Tridents land softly on the sandy floor with an audible thud. The brilliant green flame vanishes; so does the dreamlike trance. I exhale heavily, and press 'EXIT'. The top half of the cockpit swings up, and I step shakily outside, collapsing on the floor and breathing fitfully. The air is fine, but sour. Samuel joins me. We are both badly shaken.
Eventually, after a period of time I cannot discern, Samuel stands up and dusts off his boiler suit.
"Where are you going?" I demand, too tired to be irritable.
"I'm having a look at the walls," he replies, in a business like fashion. "Those crystals must be worth a bit." He makes to leave, but is halted.
"You would be well advised to stand still. Very, very still." The voice is rich, sonorous, feminine. Its owner has a gun.
She is tall, slender, and bald. She should be very beautiful, but there is something about her almost reptilian baldness that repulses me, shocks me to the very core. Her eyes are shallow and indistinct, as if there is no soul behind them, and her smooth, flawless brow runs down her face to join with a sharp, pointed, strangely alien nose. Her lips are dark and full, contrasting starkly with the almost porcelain alabaster skin around her cheekbones. She wears a loose-fitting, all-encompassing white gown, flowing silk that clings to her body and runs as low as her ankles. She holds the gun professionally, keeping the glinting muzzle trained on me and my companion. She smiles, wolfishly.
"What year is it?" she asks.
"Nineteen-ninety-eight," Samuel and I reply in unison.
She purses her lips. "Ah. I see we shall have to sit down... and have a serious talk about your situation."
I am in a bizarre, Gigeresque room, with organic walls and a domed roof, pulsating veins and arteries running like wires through the flesh around me. I am sat on a soft stump of matter that pulsates gently beneath my buttocks in a most unpleasant fashion. Samuel and the woman, who calls herself Leorna, are seated in similar fashions. A fleshy orb, throbbing slightly and glowing green, hangs from a stringy membrane on the roof, flickering in a fashion not dissimilar to that of the debriefing office light bulb.
"...Our race was born several million years before humans had even been dreamt of," Leorna was explaining. "We dominated the prehistoric world for one simple reason: we learnt to be god. We learnt to mould the cells and creatures that had still not fully evolved, injecting them with DNA, changing their shape and purpose. We made buildings out of living creatures. We built a whole world out of genetically engineered matter. We ruled the world, and played god. We were god."
"So what happened?" Samuel enthuses. "Why are you in hiding? Did all the others die, or something?"
She laughs, patronisingly. "Oh no. They're all still alive. Just frozen - we were all encased in crystal and kept in the emerald chamber. Each of our people was frozen in liquid nitrogen and individually packed in a coffin of crystal."
I frown. "Why?" I ask. "Why did you all sleep for so long?"
"Simple," she replies. "We wanted to see what would happen if we left evolution up to time, rather than changing things ourselves. And the results have been very encouraging. Just look at the choices we made..." She points to her somehow inhuman face - "and the choices nature made. We were right! Almost totally right."
"And now what will you do?"
"Why..." She frowns - "we will continue with our project, naturally. We have been sending out cameras - simple creatures with photographic memories - to study your people. We know your language, your lifestyle... Everything!"
In her excitement, she looks almost human. My thoughts are interrupted by Samuel, asking the question I have almost forgotten to ask.
"What's with all the seabed movement?"
She claps her hands together, delightedly. "Things are moving under the seabed," she declares. "A whole submarine city ready to burst open into life. Buildings with gills and respiratory systems - we can stay down here for as long as is required. Until the world is prepared for us."
"And when the world is prepared for you...?" I leave the sentence hanging.
"We will resume command," she informs us, smiling sweetly. "Now go; our doorway will be resealed and you must speak nothing of our existence. Tell your, er... bosses that you found nothing untoward.
"Otherwise we are all consigned to a watery grave. Okay?"
***
I am lying on a towel beneath the golden glare of the Californian sun, on holiday with my family. Sarah is sunbathing in a skimpy bikini; the kids are building a sandcastle, 'Uncle' Samuel enthusiastically helping out.
Five years later, and there is still no sign of Leorna's people. They all died - died in a watery grave that only Samuel and I know exists. They would all have been buried in the rockfall of ninety-nine. Astonishing cock-up, really.
Samuel splashes the children playfully with a bucket of foam-crested salt-water. I smile, contentedly.
They would have been on the brink of emerging - their fabulous city of flesh and muscle would have been in fully working order. But they never paid any notice to the seabed movement. Foolish of them, really.
It was two weeks after Samuel and I had finished our service in the Royal Sea Corps. We were looking for work in down-town Soho, and only heard about the incident a month or so after it took place. Heavy subsidence caused a mine just north of North Point to collapse - and the resulting earthquakes were tremendous. Half of the abyss fell in on itself. And the Leviathan? Well, funnily enough, the oxygen cable snapped. It took a full ten minutes for the base to hit the bottom of the abyss. A crater was left about a hundred metres from end to end on the immaculate floor of Poseidon's domain, seen only by the blind eyes of the angler fish.
Astonishing cock-up, really. A whole race of gods wiped out, just because someone forgot to check the seismos.
Or then, perhaps they still sleep. Perhaps the race of gods are still frozen in their coffins of crystal, waiting tirelessly for their wonderful resurrection. If so, then there they must wait, encased in emerald till the sands of time run out..
