Cutting grass

It’s the headstones he can’t read that bother Jimmy. Uncle Rick started preaching at the Lutheran church before he was born, so Jimmy’s used to the cemetery. Mostly. He’s been mowing the church grounds since he turned twelve. An exhilarating prospect, it seemed, the ability to operate machinery without any grown-ups looking over his shoulder. Uncle Rick and Aunt Eliza never give him any peace at anything else. It’s always wash your hands or help can these pickles or have you finished your homework? He wonders if his parents were like that when they were still alive, but he can’t remember.

He drags the mower from the shed. He pulls a cord, and the mower starts with a wheezy cough. It would be better if he had a riding mower, he thinks as he begins his circuit of the churchyard. If he did, he wouldn’t feel the chill of walking over someone’s grave. With his parents’ graves, he stands to the side and pushes the mower way over, bending his body in a funny arc to avoid stepping on them. But he can’t do it like that for every plot; it’d take all weekend to mow.

No, other than his parents, Jimmy walks all over the dead every Saturday. Ordinarily it’s no big deal. The somber, shiny headstones don’t seem to mind, and the big fancy pillars almost seem to like having the unruly grass tamed and in order. But a few of the really old ones, the thin flaking slabs with indiscernible markings on them, the ones that encourage dead-looking weeds to flower and bloom nearby, those don’t like it at all. A chill shoots through his heel, up his leg, and grips his heart with icy fingers each time he walks on one of those.

His friend Bo says it’s because witches are buried in the ancient graves. Jimmy doesn’t think that’s right. Weren’t witches forbidden from hallowed ground? Something like that. Thinking of Bo makes him suddenly appear, as usual, and Jimmy lets the mower die. Locust song rises to fill the silence.

“Ho, Bo,” he says, grinning.

Bo waves and stuffs his hands in his overall pockets. He is chewing a piece of wheat, even though there are no wheat fields in town anymore. Not since—Jimmy screws up his face, trying to remember what Ms. Taylor said in a history lesson—not since the Depression or some crazy long time ago. It’s all about corn anymore.

“Whatcha doin’, Jimmy?” Bo asks amiably. He is a simple boy, who would be in special ed classes if he went to school, which he doesn’t. Now he thinks about it, Jimmy is sure he’s never run into Bo outside the churchyard. Bo always asks questions to which the answer seems ridiculously obvious.

“Mowin’,” Jimmy replies. “The old ’uns are angry today. They been grabbin’ my heartstrings something fierce.” He likes that word - heartstrings. He imagines his heart tied up with loose shoelaces when he says it.

Bo nods wisely and squints toward the older section of graves. “They ain’t happy with you,” he says. “They figured with all the racket you make you’d take the time to figure out who they is.”

Jimmy frowns. He is never sure if he should respond to Bo’s fantasy world, or just stay quiet. “I dunno,” he says finally, “how they expect me to do that. Not like there’s a map. All the records got destroyed in a fire before I was born.”

“Pah!” says Bo. “You talk to ’em, of course. You talk to me, don’t you?”

He saunters away without waiting for an answer. By the time Jimmy has thought of something to say to that, Bo has disappeared behind a tree. He shakes his head. Bo is always appearing and vanishing. He’s a strange boy and he never knows how to end conversations politely.

Jimmy starts up the mower again. The other grave he doesn’t walk on is a tiny square on the ground. It has the name Bo Morley on it, 1906. He thinks it’s cool that someone in 1906 had the same name as his friend. He leans way, way over and pushes the machine in front.

Sunset on the mountain

Donald tried to ignore the burning in his thighs as he trudged up the mountain. The man ahead of him was using his sword as a walking-stick. Dust and dirt caked the warped blade, but at least there was no mud. It hadn’t rained in weeks.

Donald had strapped his gun to his back; he’d sold his sword for flour months ago. The gun chafed under the itchy, unwashed wool of his plaid. He snatched a loose end of his tartan and mopped his face with it; he was dripping with sweat. Back home, dusk fell quickly. Home… he felt a pang to think of Mary and the bairns. But here, in these unfamiliar, bug-swarmed mountains, dusk took its time. Or maybe he just felt that way because of the intolerable heat and the march through rhododendron hell. He wondered if it was this miserable in the Indies. Some of his clan had ended up in those islands. He doubted he’d ever see them again.

He shook himself. He always got like this after a long day of marching. He always brooded on what they were up against, and the cruel knowledge that he’d narrowly escaped death in one war only to march directly toward it again. You’re only tired, he told himself sternly. Just hungry and tired.

Thankfully, it looked like the column had stalled ahead. Were they finally to make camp atop this ghastly mountain? He reached the rocky precipice and couldn’t help but gasp. The bloodstain of sunset had crept across the sky and was reflecting off the granite of the mountain in a thousand shades of pink and amaranth. It filtered through the thin green leaves of the rhododendrons; they were suddenly laden with fruits of carmine and vermilion light. As he drank in the beauty of the land, the pipers filled their bellows and slowly took up a haunting song. The melody fell on the air and soared up the mountain. Donald closed his eyes against it all, and wept.

Home is where the fire is

It was a chilly night, the kind autumn sends to make sure you remember it has arrived. Brendan showed up late to the party. He hung back a moment, unsure of himself. A small fire crackled in an iron pit on the patio; people clutched plastic cups and laughed manically at jokes that weren’t all that funny. The men wore fedoras and artfully torn jeans, the women tank tops or skirts; they all shivered or rubbed their hands vigorously, having chosen to underdress and be stylish rather than warm.

He walked up to the patio; he made it all the way to the steps before anyone realized someone new had arrived. A chorus of loud greetings assaulted him. He smiled wordlessly. He hadn’t seen most of these people since high school.

The hostess, an old friend, appeared from inside the house carrying a camera in one hand and a drink in the other. “Brendan!” she shrieked, nearly dropping both items as she raised her arms to hug him. He had never understood why some people feel the need to start and end every encounter with a hug, but he complied. “Ooooh,” she said pulling back and winking at him. “What’s that I felt in your pocket?”

He pulled out his two staves. “I spin fire these days, remember?” he said. “I was told you wanted me to spin tonight.”

“Oh, will you, please?” she said, batting her eyelashes. He smiled again, a little charmed despite himself.

He had no idea why he was here. He was starting to feel like it was a mistake as he accepted an apricot beer from someone he didn’t know. This wasn’t his crowd. He’d moved out of state right after school because he’d never felt like this was home. But his cousin had talked him into the party. These people were talking politics. These people were worried about their weight. These people had children. None of them had ever seen anyone spin fire, or any of the other things he could do.

He finished his beer, stepped into the modest yard, and began arranging his things. The moment the poi were alight, he felt more at ease. Out here, he couldn’t see the faces of the other party-goers. They fell mostly silent, though occasionally they yelled at him good-naturedly. He started to spin, slowly at first, but gradually gaining speed and complexity. Just like always, a dozen camera bulbs began to flash. He was home, after all.

Outcast

Glaring at the post, Blikkerd morosely rubbed his sore tooth. Those jerks would get it one day, he thought, pounding one green fist into the other with a satisfying fleshy smack. Oh sure, they could point and laugh now, but Blikkerd was certain that he’d hit his growth spurt one day and grow three times bigger. Then he’d finally stand nose-to-nose with the ogre bullies, those arrogant debonair dudes who had all the girls falling over themselves for attention. Then he’d be the one tying people to posts by their teeth and winning misty-eyed female gazes.

Surely he couldn’t remain a shrimp forever.

He kicked a tree trunk in anger; its bark split a few inches. He roared in frustration. If any other ogre had kicked a tree, it would have fallen with a magnificent crash. A squirrel sat in high up the tree, skritching away at a walnut and eyeing him curiously. He roared again. The squirrel barked back at him and stuck out its tongue.

Blikkerd sighed heavily and walked on through the woods. It would be days before he could show his face back in the caves. No one would soon forget his flailing arms and unmanly shrieks when they’d tied him to the post. No, he’d need to let that effect wear off before returning home.

Feeling rather lonely, he walked for hours, barely noticing where his feet led him. As it grew dark, he started to look for a glade where he could sleep. He was NOT afraid of the dark, not at all. He had a severe allergy to darkness, was all, and the only cure, unfortunately, was sleeping near others. It was not going to be a good night, spent all alone.

He stumbled through a thick patch of fragrant pine and stopped dead at what he saw. In the clearing there lay sleeping three beautiful faeries. Their skin glimmered like snow in the late evening sunshine; their diaphanous wings caught the light and reflected prisms of color. Their lunch, clearly stolen from humans in the nearby village, lay snugged by the nearest faery. But most beautiful of all, an ogre slept against a tree, part of their little group. The ogre was ridiculously small… barely bigger than Blikkerd himself.

Blikkerd could hardly contain the feeling of hope that set his heart to hammering. He crept into the circle and settled against a tree across from the other ogre. He would wait until they awoke. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t tie his teeth to a post when they discovered him.

Nest

Spring cleaning fever set upon me in early March. Something about chartreuse buds peeking from behind the russet film of winter triggers an innate need to tidy our human nests. I scrubbed, I donated, I reorganized and folded. I turned my gaze to my little lawn, where my wrath fell upon the blight embodied by a giant rusted satellite dish.

I had no idea how to get rid of the thing myself; it was far too large and I hadn’t the proper tools to dig it up. So I posted an ad online. “Free to the first taker: scrap metal in the form of old satellite dish. Must remove it personally.” Within hours I had four replies and wondered if I should have charged people for the service. I arranged for someone to remove it while I was away from the house.

When I got home, I strode purposefully to the spot where the satellite dish had once darkened my yard. A deep hole was the only indication it had ever been there… except for a bird’s nest. Tiny naked creatures with yellow bills and bits of brown fuzz filled the nest. Anguish rose in my chest. I hadn’t even considered the time of year, the likelihood that a bird might choose the satellite dish as a safe place to lay her eggs.

I tried to leave the nest alone to entice the mother back. But when it became clear the mother wouldn’t (or couldn’t) return to the disturbed nest, I dug worms and tried to feed the birds. I fed them sugar water. I frantically telephoned animal rescue outfits within a hundred-mile radius; they all told me there was no chance of saving birds so young.

Days later, all options exhausted, my husband put the dying creatures out of their misery, tears streaming down his face. After burying the tiny bodies, we held each other, shoulders shaking, gazing at the nest and wondering why the stupid satellite dish couldn’t have waited another month.

Tarpon

It was seven o’clock in the morning. We’d awoken in the dark before dawn and hastily eaten stale toast with funny-tasting peanut butter for protein. Then we’d assembled our gear in the sandy bed of the truck and grilled each other to ensure nothing was forgotten. We piled into the truck and left as the sun began to stain the clouds orange.

Like every other morning, it was cool and windy when we arrived at the dive site. The clouds were low and heavy. They promised rain, but we knew by now that the rain would not come. So, threatening skies notwithstanding, we donned our gear and waded through the surf, sometimes clutching each other for support as the waves lapped our legs and threatened to topple us with all our heavy gear on our backs. Once we were far enough out, we pulled on our fins and, with a last wide smile at each other, dove.

The reef was bare here, and the visibility was less than ideal. Some days, one could see the sunken ship almost from the shore. This morning, though, its massive hull slowly materialized before us only when we were quite near. There were no other divers this early in the morning; we had the wreck to ourselves. We explored her from bow to stern. Coral adorned every surface like jewelry on a fat old lady.

As the others explored the deck, I hovered out in front, following their progress by watching their bubbles. I turned and scanned the deep blue behind me. Just as I was about to turn back, I realized a long, slender shape was emerging from the gloom.

My heart hammered in my chest. I could feel my excitement mounting, and I carefully regulated my breathing so as not to use my air any faster than usual. Was this it? I’d hoped and hoped to see a shark. A diver had mentioned to me over dinner the night before that he’d seen a gray reef shark near this site, and of course early morning was a good time to spot one.

The silver, torpedo-like shape floated serenely nearer, barely moving a fin. Gradually, the mouth became clear, and the wide silver scales. My heart sank. Just a tarpon. He was nearly as big as I was and held the cold, calculating air of a predator, but a shark he was not. He regarded me with cool interest. I lifted my camera. Even if he wasn’t a shark, it wasn’t a bad start to the day at all.

The others emerged from their exploring and the tarpon, seeing the divers, moved away. My moment with him was over.

Weather

Spring is always too early. Almost no one thinks so, certainly not homeless people, not insects or woodland creatures. Even people who live in heated homes look out their glass windows and sigh heavily about the lack of sunshine. But for me, spring comes too soon, without fail. The temperatures rise without regard for what I wish; the mercury of my emotions falls in a flawless mirror.

My eyes feast on the colors of springtime blossoms, but my heart sinks with their coming, for hot, sticky summer lurks just beyond the horizon, waiting to swallow me up in misery.

Squeaky shoes

Her new shoes were huge; she bought bellbottoms to hide them. Her new shoes were squeaky. At the office, she walked through the carpeted areas, head down, and cringed inwardly at each loud, creaking step. She was not interested in engaging in the loose circles of employees chatting around the coffee maker, but her shoes announced her presence as she entered every room. People would look up, wait expectantly. She would smile and look for something in her pockets. They would return to their conversations.

Every morning she put on the shoes. Told herself she didn’t look that bad. Every morning she forgot how squeaky her new shoes were until she was around people. Until it was too late, when everyone had already heard her coming.

Wings

It was September, still hot and so humid that she immediately felt as if she’d been wrapped in cellophane whenever she stepped outside. But she’d found a bit of ivy clinging to her brick apartment building, and that vine had a single red leaf on it. No harbinger of autumn like that could be ignored. Fall, the season of death, was her favorite. She wanted to be watching when hit.

She drove three hours to a national park. She hiked several trails that day, leaning down and closely examining every fallen leaf, every nut and mushroom, every wooly caterpillar that trundled across the packed earth. She smoked cigarettes every few hundred yards and put them out in a water bottle in her backpack, to be disposed of later. She nodded and smiled at other hikers headed the opposite way. She stopped to read snatches of Edgar Allen Poe poems. She imagined she had wings. She sweated completely through her tank top and wiped her brow with a rainbow-colored bandana.

In the end, she was so hot and tired she hiked the road back to her car, rather than take the long way around. She was looking at the ground, testing her balance by walking heel-to-toe along the white line painted at the edge of the road, when something small and light brushed her cheek. She looked up to see a brilliant orange butterfly struggling to open its wings and failing. It looked miserable. She picked it up and held it in her hand. She felt like a god.

She placed it gently on a tree branch and turned back to her path.

Battle

Giggling, Brandy stood and staggered across the ditch. The traffic cop, standing ten feet away in the middle of the road, gave me a look as I leapt up after her and snagged her hand. I was giggling, too. “Come back here! Listen, I can hear the bagpipes. They’re coming.”

She subsided next to me in the dewy grass. She laid a finger across her lips and looked meaningfully over her shoulder.

We were camping at the Scottish highland games. There were two groups of campers: the family side and MacRowdy. The family campers took up all the flat space to be found in the area. They got warm showers and went to bed at eleven o’clock. We were on MacRowdy, a mountain across the road. We had two or three drum circles going into the wee hours of the morning; as we slept, we slid into human puddles at the bottom of our tents. But tonight, the family campers were invading, armed with marshmallows, led by a troop of pipers in full regalia. Brandy and I hid, ready to ambush them before they knew what hit them.

The pipers came into view. We waited. Never fire on the pipers, everyone knows that. Stifling a grin, the traffic cop held up his hands to approaching cars; they’d have to wait until the war was over. As the first few campers came into view, Brandy stood, released a shriek of a war cry, and pelted them with a handful of marshmallows. One of them actually hit someone.

I hit one girl in the chest; the marshmallow slid down the front of her shirt. She retaliated. A sticky white pellet slapped into my cheek. Brandy and I ran out of marshmallows before anyone else did and jogged toward MacRowdy under a shower of strangely glowing goo. We held hands to avoid being separated.

We stopped, collapsed into the grass behind someone’s tent, clutched each other, wheezed with laughter. “C’mon,” I said after catching my breath. “Let’s get ’em!”

We helped each other up—an extraordinary feat—and plucked marshmallows from the ground. They were sticky and warm, covered in dead grass. We started throwing our goods at someone. “Stop!” our target yelled indignantly. “I’m with MacRowdy!”

We splayed our hands apologetically. Our fingers stuck together. Then we hid and watched a maniac advance on our mountain. He had taken ashes and smeared them across his face. For camouflage or acne, we would never know. He was roaring mightily and chucking white things indiscriminately. He hit me in the forehead. It stung like crazy. Brandy and I grinned at each other and, without a word, rushed him. We stood ten feet away from him and hurled everything we had at him, screaming defiance.

We missed.

Arms around each other’s shoulders, we retreated.

Significance

Some people look out at the world and conclude from its vast, awesome nature that they are insignificant. They can’t handle the overwhelming hugeness of it all, the fact that we’re tiny clay flecks spinning in an infinite universe around a trivial star. So they lock themselves in their houses and find solace in things that make them feel comforted and more important, like reality television shows, microwave popcorn, and central air conditioning.

But those things—an office job that makes no difference in the world, an evening routine of checking email and watching other people live out their fictional lives—are the very things that make me feel small and insignificant. When I wake up and look around, I’m crippled by a crushing sense of meaninglessness. So I go out and look at the world. Seeing its vastness and awesomeness makes me feel larger than my little life again, and I feel whole for a few more days.

Brooding

He is going to have to leave her, if he ever wants not to be miserable again. But even though the logic works, he can’t stop brooding. And wondering.

Whoever said, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all,” should be dragged naked through the desert. First, for the split infinitive. But second, for the sentiment. Long ago, he was consumed with despair, empty and cold. Resigned to be alone. He should have been left for dead.

Instead, he was given a tantalizing taste of what life should be like.

To take that away is worse than not having had it before. He’s not the blind man who treasures his five-minute rainbow. He’s the poor man who never should have tasted gourmet food, because he’d never have known what he was missing.

Family

I love taking photographs. I record my life with forensic determination. I realized this morning that I don't have a single picture of you. You don't factor into my life, because every time I let you, everything seems to explode around me. If I had the choice, you would not even exist on the fringes of my life anymore. But what they say about family is true. You can't choose them.

I know people have unreasonably high expectations of family and holiday togetherness. So I try to empty myself of those kinds of thoughts. But my expectations—of having a holiday when you were quiet and maybe even civil to me—were still too high.

Sitting by the river, I run over the argument in my head. I came to you because I thought I'd somehow offended you. I asked how, and apologized. You started yelling. You didn't stop. I look over to the other side of the river and realize there is no bridge that will get me to the far side. It will always be within sight, but forever out of reach.

Maple

The drive home was frantic. I knew he was okay, but I also knew the tornado had hit our house; his spare descriptions left too much to the imagination. The roads were wet and sometimes flooded; my car floated over these spots at eighty miles per hour, completely out of my control. I was banking on the hope that we could only be hit by one disaster a day. Luckily, I was right about that.

I only willingly slowed down when I pulled into the neighborhood and began to see the damage—trees down, power lines littering the road, and houses smashed by invisible fists, their guts yanked out and jumbled grotesquely across yards and ditches. I pulled into the driveway and saw the old, stately maple tree in the back yard had been pushed over by the tornado. Its corpse lay across the yard, its root system standing taller than a person. Its tender, vivid green leaves didn’t know they were dead yet.

He rushed out to greet me. As I fell into his embrace and bit back relieved tears, the maple tree inexorably drew my eyes over his shoulder.

Abandoning

He flicked his cigarette; the pale ashes caught in the breeze and carried for a few feet before landing among the leaves. She hated this about him. He took another drag. He pulled so hard she could hear the tobacco crackling from where she sat, her legs dangling out of the driver side door. The powder blue of the car, she reflected, perfectly matched her eyeshadow. She was going to miss this car.

He exhaled a noxious cloud of smoke and tossed the butt into the leaves. She was glad it was wet. She tapped her long red fingernails on the steering wheel. She didn't know why she had to be here, and not one of his thugs. She rolled her eyes but said nothing. She knew better. She folded a new piece of chewing gum into her mouth.

He jerked his head in an arrogant gesture. Time to move on, then. She swung her platform-heeled feet inside and looked through the broken windshield. With a mighty grunt, he pushed the rear of the car, and it slowly rolled forward. She turned the wheel every time they threatened to hit a tree.

"All right, get out," he said as the car rolled to a stop.

She did so, carefully checking for twigs and branches before stepping anywhere. "I don't think anyone's going to find it all the way out here," she said, gum smacking. He shook his head.

They stood together looking at the car. She promised herself to come back and look at it in a few years. Who knew what it would look like then?