Issue Five, Volume Five

From the Desk of the an Editor;

Hello and greetings to this issue of Larks Fiction Magazine! In this issue we explore the weird world of inanimate objects and their lives.

In big exciting news, our editors will be running the Luchador 5K Run in Tulsa, Oklahoma to benefit underprivileged children afford summer camp programs. If you are near Tulsa near the end of March come out and chat us up whilst eating our dust! Here is the website: https://luchadorrun-es2002.eventbrite.com/?rank=10#

Besides charity we are continuing to read submissions. We should be nearing the end of the backlog so expect the new submission email address soon!

Yours,

Jessica Rowse

LFM Editor

Concerning Lost Buttons

By Daniel J. Pool

On a Monday in June I hung low from a single thread; bobbing in time with wet tennis shoes. I stared at the shoes; so smug as they paced the wet earth. I felt loads shift and an arm scuffed me. I fell.

Hitting the ground, I yelled. I yelled to the coat, to the trousers, even the smug tennis shoes—but they did not or could not care. I lay on the bitter earth, alone and thread-less.

In anguish I cried out for no one; just for myself. My life was over, what is a life without a button hole and thread? What is a button alone?

“Shut up,” said a smoky of a voice from nearby.

“Who’s there?”

“You think you have it rough bud?” asked the voice, completely ignoring my question.

“Well yes, all of my life is now useless; I am without a place or stitch in this world. No one would give a darn about me now,” I lamented.

“How do you think I feel? I was loved. I was important, and then they used me, and threw me out.”

The wave of anguish the words create, forced me to turn over, to see next to me was Cigarette Butt.

Wallowing in a pool of grief he cried, “There is no point to being without being useful, and for us sir, we are no longer.”

“But then why am I left? Just to fade in the sun and bide my time till I am dust?”

His filtered silence answered me, for us there was only waiting left. Waiting to not be, and we might as well never had been. A cancer of silence grew between us. A light rain fell.

Breaching the void, a drizzle of a voice said,”Don’t listen to him, if we can wait we can live. It is not our usefulness that will save us, but our outlook on ourselves.”

Cigarette Butt rolled his eyes, “Stay out of this Condom.”

Fin

About the Author;

Daniel J. Pool is an author, blogger, and reporter from the Southern Mid-West. His work has been featured in Indigo Rising, the Fringe, and the Scarlet Sound magazines respectfully. In his spare time he is training to become a luchador warrior.

Twisted Vine

By Jessica Rowse

Finley

By Lara Kern

There Finley sat in the sink, dirty again. This was his life now- tossed carelessly in the sink with other dirty dishes in even dirtier water. Didn't these people care about the mess that they always seem to leave behind? Trash was constantly scattered through the small room, and it left behind an almost gut wrenching stench that did not seem to bother the owners of this quaint dorm room. Finley had been taught differently at the prestigious school for young cutlery that his parents had insisted upon. He had struggled for so long to learn how to behave like a young, prestigious piece of cutlery. He was even forced to clean the grit underneath his master’s nails.

Finley had never attended one of the fancy dinner parties that he was promised in school. His owner didn't even take the time to polish him- or any other piece of silver for that matter. All of that time and effort wasted. Instead of attending formal parties, Finley was deduced to the filth of greasy, cheap TV dinners. To add insult to injury his owner decided to use Finley to unclog the kitchen sink on a regular basis.

Finley refused to imagine what his parents would say if they could see him now. What a total disgrace he had turned out to be. The worst part was that Finley wasn't as disgusted as he should have been- like his parents would have been if they had seen their little boy in this place. A college dorm was his parents’ worst nightmare. He hadn't always lived like this though. His family had picked out their house and owners with a great deal of care and attention. They failed to factor into the equation however, that the young boy would eventually grow up and leave that pristine house for something quite the opposite.

The boy, Adam, as the adults called him, had been taken with Finley since he had laid eyes upon him. From the first moment that Finley had been unwrapped from his package, side-by-side with his parents, Adam’s eyes lit up. Finley found out much later on from his father that Adam’s house had no small forks before their arrivial and all of the other forks were simply much too big for Adam's tiny, pucker of a mouth. It only made sense when the grown up Adam moved out to give him the fork he had cherished in his youth. The reason for Adam’s departure from his childhood home was foreign to Finley. He saw no reason to leave but apparently life had more in store for him and Adam.

Finley was glad that Adam had not insisted on taking his family after much thought because he came to the conclusion that his family simply could not handle the young man. Sure, Finley rarely cleaned his spot in the cutlery drawer but what young fork ever does? Finley's mother had insisted that he keep his living quarters neat and tidy and he was relieved to be rid of that burden. Besides, Finley didn't leave moldy pieces of bread out for weeks like Adam. Finley knew that this was his life now and he had to make of it what he could.

When Finley first arrived at the dorm room he was perturbed. Maybe, he thought helplessly, this was a waiting room or something of the sort. A fort night passed and still Finley was stuck in this place. That was when he found out that everything he had been prepared for and had studied so diligently was being thrown out of the window. The other cutlery was unrefined and undignified. They refused to even talk to Finley and so he had found himself friendless and lonely. Finley had begun to notice changes in Adam as well. A small voice in Finley’s head tried to reason that it was merely human nature to grow up.

That voice in Finley's head started out small and turned into something bigger, a shout. The voice yelled at Finley about things that he considered minor. The voice continued on until one day it turned into a need. Finley didn’t know what to think at first so he held strong to the ideals that were instilled into his metal points. In the meantime, Adam was ever evolving into someone of his own design without the limitations created during his childhood by adults. He wore, said, and did exactly what he wanted.

Adam began seeing a girl. Finley had never cared to even consider Adam's life. Finley's number one concern was his wellbeing. It wasn't that Finley disliked Adam because that wasn't the case at all. In fact, Finley respected Adam enough to stay out of his business. It did not take Finley long to learn the girl's name, Kathy. He had overheard one of their many late night talks and began to wonder if there was someone like Kathy out there in the big, wide world for him.

Weeks passed by and Finley had begun to ache for someone to share his thoughts with.

As the weeks faded into months Kathy began to spend more time at the quaint college dorm. Then, everything changed. Adam packed up his belongings and lugged Finley just blocks away from the dorm but it felt like miles to Finley. Adam and Kathy had rented an apartment together for the summer. Finley had slipped into a comfortable, predictable life back at the dorm. Sure, his life had not been perfect but who can accept perfection from a twenty year old male? Besides, Finley had loved their late night snacking and random assortment of foods. Now everything would change. They would no longer eat peanut butter out of the jar at two o'clock in the morning.

Finley had liked Kathy. Why was she taking away his best friend? Adam, Kathy, and Finley had been at their new apartment for less than a week and Finley had already sulked up in his place in the drawer. He had even tried to maim a poor, defenseless visitor who reached into the drawer unknowingly looking for a utensil. Somehow during Finley's attack the visitor slammed the drawer closed causing some of Finley's teeth to get mangled. The man took no notice and continued making his sandwich as Finley lay huddled in his corner. He shuddered and tried to will his would-be brilliant, shiny teeth to bend back in their proper direction, but it was no use nothing he tried made any kind of difference.

Finley had stayed huddled in the corner for days. At first, Finley had been furious at Adam for abandoning him so suddenly. Then, he became angry at himself for attacking one of Adam's friends. Finally, Finley had become depressed and hurt by the fact that absolutely no one was there for him. He had huddled in a quaint, dark corner of the drawer alone and uncared for.

Finley was sure that he would not live to see another day. His teeth were cruelly twisted on top of his head as if in a bun. It was the most excruciating pain Finley had ever felt. He just knew he would be left here alone and unloved in his pathetic little corner forever.

A few days later, someone pulled the drawer out harder than expected and Finley, along with the other cutlery, all shimmied to the front of the drawer. Adam began to paw through the drawer looking for something to stir his morning coffee with. It was a relief to Finley when Adam found him. Adam gently lifted Finley out of the drawer and inspected his cruelly twisted teeth. He ran a finger down the deformities and even inspected it further in the light. Finally, Adam carefully bent each tooth back to its original shape.

After Finley had been saved he took a new lease on life. He began to open up more to the other kitchen utensils. The Spatula, Conrad, helped Finley with the transition and they soon became good friends. Conrad had been brought to the small apartment because Adam had nothing to properly flip pancakes with. Kathy was Conrad’s owner; he loved to share stories about when she was only a little girl. Then, very gradually the number of kitchen utensils began to expand. Finley remembered a time when Adam had only two of the basics: two bowls, two plates, two cups, two forks, two knives, and two spoons. Now, combined with Kathy’s things, Finley found it difficult to comfortably lie in his favorite drawer. At night, he was packed into the small drawer with all of the other cutlery, sardine style, and it was hard to breathe.

Finley had become more content with his life than ever before. He rarely got upset due to the lack of use or polishing because his anger never solved the problem. Friends like Conrad had helped him regain a sense of direction in his life. The only thing he longed for was someone to share his hopes and dreams with. He wanted someone who would be there for the good times and the bad.

A few days after his realization, Kathy brought in a cardboard box. When their eyes met over the soapy dish suds it was a serendipitous moment. No words could properly describe the volume of feeling that was tugging a Finley’s heart strings. The oval shape of her head made Finley’s heart swoon. She was absolutely the most beautiful piece of cutlery Finley had ever seen in his life.

Finley awkwardly shuffled in one spot and lowered his eyes to the floor. He nudged Conrad, “Who’s that?”

Conrad laughed cordially, “That, my good fellow, is Petunia.”

Petunia, “Finley let the name roll from his tongue in a hazy daydream voice.

Conrad leaned closer to Finley as if they were discussing a conspiracy on a larger scale, “Petunia was the prettiest thing you have ever seen back in her youthful days. She has become weathered and unused as of late and is frightfully upset about the whole matter. You see, Petuina was Kathy’s favorite spoon. She never ate cereal, soup, or porridge without her and then one day everything turned south. Kathy barely even polishes Petunia anymore.” Conrad clucked his tongue in a disapproving manner.

Finley forced his gaze from Petunia back to Conrad, “But why?” How could someone not see Petunia’s beauty? It was obvious to Finley and he had not even been properly introduced to her yet.

Over the next few days Finley tried his best to get to know Petunia but his efforts were dashed on the rocks. Finley discovered that Petunia was quiet and shy. He never saw her talking with anyone and she barely explored outside of the drawer Kathy had placed her in. She did occasionally take short walks around the kitchen counter but she never wandered far. Finley would watch all of the other utensils trying to talk to her and he was relieved to see she never favored one.

Not too long after Petunia's arrival, Finley got his chance to talk to her. A bunch of other utensils had arrived after Petunia and some of them were not as sweet as she was. One was Billy. Conrad had warned Finley against any type of interaction with Billy. Apparently, Billy was a troubled young man who was recklessly dangerous. He had gotten into so many fights that Kathy's parents had given him to Kathy as a moving present. Billy proceeded to pick on and torture all of Kathy's cutlery and even the kitchen appliances.

Finley was unsure why but Billy made him feel uneasy. Conrad had informed Finley that at one time Billy and Petunia had been a couple. Petunia had ended the relationship when Billy became violent. Finley was displeased to see Billy lurking around Petunia’s drawer in an obvious attempt to get her back. He did that every night and every night Finley lost sleep worrying about Petunia.

Finley had succeeded in keeping his distance until he heard muffled voices. One sounded like Petunia’s melodious voice. Finley had thought nothing of it until he heard a scream and metal hit metal. When he made his way to the noises Finley saw Billy standing over a sobbing Petunia.

“You stupid little…” Billy raised his blade to strike Petunia again.

“What is going on here?”Finley's voice was tense and full of anger.

“Nothing that concerns you,” Billy's dark eyes narrowed at Finley.

Petunia began to sob, “Please Billy stop. Leave him alone.”

“SHUT UP! Just shut up Petunia. If you won’t like me then no one will like you after I’m done. Do you get what I’m saying?” Billy’s voice was irate.

Petunia continued to sob but said nothing else.

Billy turned his back to Petunia and rounded on Finley, “What are you still doing here? I thought I told you to scram!”

“I don't think so,” Finley had never been in a fight and was scared out of his mind, but he refused to let Billy see his fear.

Finley jumped out in front of Billy and ended up tripping the big, bad bully with his slightly larger feet by accident. Finley watched horrified as Billy took a terrifyingly long fall and landed with a loud clank on the kitchen floor. Billy swore and spat, his blade was bent and his temper was running high but there was nothing he could do to repair his damaged ego or his bent blade.

Finley’s stomach sank. He had never meant to hurt Billy. He had only wanted to protect Petunia. Petunia still was lying on the counter. Finley knelt down and gently patted her head, “Are you okay?”

Petunia stirred a little from her dazed state, “I believe so. Is Billy gone?” Her eyes gleamed with fright.

“You’re safe.”

Finley saw relief wash over Petunia as their eyes met.

“Thank you,” she replied.

Finley and Petunia finally got the chance to talk about their past, present, and futures. Petunia had experiences like no one Finley had ever met. While Finley had found himself in etiquette training Petunia was out exploring the world with Kathy. He found that he could sit for hours and listen to her beautiful voice. Finley had finally found the one that made him whole and he had never been happier. Finley knew this wasn’t an ending but the beginning to something more.

About the Author;

Lara Kern was born and still resides in Gainesville, Georgia with her husband, two dogs, and cat. She has been writing on hubpages.com for over a year and has currently started a blog entitled Confessions of a Rambling Girl.

Thank you for joining us once again! Come back next week for more great fiction! Or see our back issues for more indie lit.

Issue Three, Volume Five

From the Desk of the Editor;

Hello and welcome to another issue of Larks Fiction Magazine. Due to a recent injury (see attached photo and story) I haven't been as vigilant at keeping up with the In-Box. My apologizes.

We had a work get withdrawn so this week is a little thin on quantity but has plenty of quality. We are offering a work of one of our favorite poets Charles Bernard and the story behind my leg!

Enjoy,

Daniel J. Pool

LFM Editor

Fogged Drenched Sun

Photo by Jessica Rowse

The African Child

By Charles Bernard

Dark as graphite yet his teeth glitters

Cracked lips yet his smiles radiates

Empty belly yet he is laughter filled

Under the burning sun he lives

Burning with zeal and hope

Bleak future dream at its peak

Magnificent walk on cracked feet

From dirt a rose spring fort

Black skin and a pure heart

He is African and happy

For more about Charles follow him @chalzz619 and see his blog at http://greendiarynotes.wordpress.com/

What Really Happened at Fox House

By Daniel J. Pool

As many of you have heard, the Larks Media team has been busy fixing up a historic building in Lindsay, Oklahoma to be our new world headquarters. The building is well over one-hundred years old and needs more than a little tender-love-and-care to bring it up to snuff.

Our current project was to refinish a back porch that had been converted into an enclosed sun room. Our plan is to make it into a bathroom (on account of indoor plumbing not being a well accepted practiced when originally built).

We ran into the issue that builders from before statehood were not governed by any codes for constructing homes (or the laws of physics). Some rooms were built to withstand a direct hit from an artillery shell while others were being held together by prayers and cinder-blocks.

We chose to reinforce.

To do this we ripped out a rotten floor and placed more floor beams into the structure. This gave us a good strong base to put a sub-floor on.

While placing the sub-floor I got the bright idea to skip across the rafters to show off to my father-in-law. As if karma was sitting on my shoulder, I miscalculated my footing and fell straight between the newly reinforced wooden beams.

The fall was more unexpected than painful but seemed to take several minutes to finish. This gave my brain ample time to call myself every name known to man for a clumsy moron while skinning my shin down the hundred year old beam.

As if my ego needed another kick to the head, I discovered that my fall was nearly a full foot longer than I thought it should have been. This was mostly in part to be distracted by how bad my leg suddenly felt but also because minutes before I had the fore thought to dig out the crawl space.

You see there is nothing worse than a fat man stuck under a house. Except maybe being that fat man trapped under the house using a hand spade to burrow to freedom. Thus I dug the crawl space out to allow easy access to plumbing.

This also resulted in easy access to my most personal inventory.

Now face down in the silt of red dust common to Oklahoma, my pride attempted to hide further under the house while I gulped down curse words.

My father-in-law, true to form, asked if I was “Alright.”

Not to show weakness in front of him I answered “Fine.”

So I gathered myself up. Dusted myself off. Then hurried outside. Safely outside I released a string of language so blue that the neighbors are still keeping their children inside for fear of frost bite.

Having let go I felt much better. In fact the leg just looked. Gathering myself up I returned inside just in time to watch my father-in-law make the exact same miscalculation. A cloud of dust, obscene words, and a ball cap sailed into the air.

I asked him if he was “alright” to which he said, “I'm fine.”

So we boarded over the rafters with plywood and called it a day. Now I'm on the mend but I still look like a Willy Wonky blueberry in need of juicing. It's not stopping me from getting around but I have to keep it elevated and medicate liberally.

And that's what really happened... mostly.

Thanks for reading!

Issue Eleven, Volume Four

From the Desk of the an Editor;

Hello and welcome to this late edition of Larks Fiction Magazine! In this issue we bring you two stories of love and loss--fear and trembling--teenage angst... Or just plain people finding their way through life.

We hope you enjoy this issue and make sure to come back next week for more great fiction from independent authors as well as updates on Fox House--our new world headquarters.

All the best,

Jessica Rowse

LFM Edior

What Really Happened

By EM Reapy

We stood in front of the well. I looked in. The water lapped. Was it as far down as the village said it was? A mile at least. It couldn’t be. He dunked the bucket and brought it back. Neither of us drank. The pail hovered. Water splished.

The village was a flicker of activity way down the steep hill. Market day. Farmers trading. Fruit and veg stalls. Fishmongers with their cold eyed catch on ice. Hippies with knitted ponchos and friendship bracelets. Baked breads, cupcakes. Pizza. Gypsy fortune tellers and a carousel spinning, playing carnival music.  

He was rubbing the nape of his neck. He wouldn’t keep eye contact. There was a hole at the knees of his black denim jeans I bought him for his twenty second. That was four years ago. His hips were still so slim. Little wrinkles forming around his eyes were the only way you’d know he was older.

‘Is it true?’ I had to ask. I didn’t want to hear but I had to ask. The choke in me was suffocating. There were whispers. I knew it was true. A woman knows.  

He coughed. Wiped his face. Pinched his eyes. He was silent. I asked again.

‘Jill, I- She- Look, it meant nothing.’

The choke finally released.

Electricity sparked in the space underneath. Fizzed around. Spit furiously.  A thunderstorm rose inside me. I felt the gales pick up. Make me dizzy. Blow me around. A roar erupted from my belly out my mouth. Lightning flashed in my brain. I was burning.

‘How could you? I trusted you.’ I struck him. Punched him. Scratched him. Bit him. Kicked him. He let me.

Blood in his mouth. Scuffs from my runners on his face. His shirt grass stained. Swells expanding on his skin. Blue and green outlines of bruises that would purple in the coming days. I roared again and picked him up.

‘I’m sorry, Jill.’

‘I loved you so much. Why?’  

We sat on the well. We said nothing for hours. He went for my hand. I seized it away from him. Every so often I’d sob. Low. Deep. He wanted to hold me but I couldn’t have his touch on me. No more.

‘We should go,’ he said and shuddered. Offered me his hoodie. I took it and zipped it up to the neck.  

Dusk was stealing blue from the sky. Replacing it with dark. I couldn’t see Jack anymore. Where he was walking. I called out. I heard the thud. He moaned. I followed the hurt noise.  

‘What happened?’ I asked him.

‘My head. I tripped. I’m after splitting open my head.’

I couldn’t see. I touched it and felt the hot sticky gush on my fingers.  ‘Shit, Jack. You’re losing it quick and fast. Shit. Shit. Shit.’

I tried to lift him. He was a dead weight. He was mumbling words.

‘Jack, I need to go and get help. Okay. I’ll be back soon. I promise. Hold on.’

‘Jill,’ he said. ‘It meant nothing. It was you. It was always you. Only you.’

I kissed his cheek and ran down the hill towards the village.  I tumbled. 

The End

About the Author;

EM Reapy has an MA in Creative Writing, from Queen's University Belfast. She edits wordlegs.com. Her short fiction has featured in international publications. She's working on a film script and collection of short stories.

Red Ears

 Photo Credit: Jessica Rowse, 2012

 Standing in a Doorway
By Daniel J. Pool


He clutched the handle, turned it, and started to go in. She stopped him before he even made it in the door; letting herself weep into his shirt. He stood there for just a moment, hesitating, wondering what to do.

He wanted to be happy, but did not know what she wanted.

She wanted to be strong, but did not know how.

“Don’t be scared. We can do this,” he said.

“But what will my parents say?” she replied.

A breeze swept the fumes of mowed grass and chlorine through the front door and around the couple. Something with wings hummed over the flower bed. The clouds slowed to a crawl. For that minute, the world stopped for two huddled in the entrance.

“Hey, it’s going to be ok,” he told her, wiping a tear off her cheek.

She replied with a nod and a choke as more tears burned rings around her eyes.

“I know.”

“I have to go back to work. Text me after you go to the doctor.” Squeezing her he kissed her forehead and said, “And tell your dad I’m not leaving town, not even if he threatens me. I’m here for you. “

Silence. The tears slowed, then stopped.

“I’ll see you after work?”

“Yes dear. “ Turning to walk away, he stopped, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Without every stepping inside, they took their first steps. Edging forward into life, the couple decided theirs.

On a rainy day in November they became a couple. In the back of a sedan in February they became lovers. And on a sunny day in October they became parents.

 The End

 

Originally published by Daily Love, 03/25/12

About the Author;
Daniel J. Pool is an IT consultant, writer, and part-time funny man from the Southern Mid-West. His works has appeared in Weird Year, Indigo Rising, and the Fringe Magazines respectfully. In his spare time he edits Larks Fiction Magazine.

Thank you for joining us and make sure to come back next week!

Issue Seven, Volume Four

From the Desk of the an Editor,

Hello and welcome to another exciting issue of Larks Fiction Magazine! In this issue we explore the meaning of life after adventure, love lost, and as always the very best in up-and-coming wordsmiths!

Make sure to check out the Fox House Tumblr for updates on our beautiful new office and constant weekend diversion at: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/thefoxhouse

Thank you for joining us and enjoy the works of Sy and Kevin!

Yours,

Jessica Rowse

LFM Editor

Neutral Corner Voices
by Sy Roth

A blink of water boinked the sea floor.
When it arrived full-blown
a tsunami
rushed ashore sweeping them all away.

She vacuums upstairs
in that hostile place, her sanctuary,
pillaging the corners with her Oreck
messaging kickplates under the cabinets,
finding no voice for her anger
except in the angry roar of the vacuum
distaste settling in her shoulders.

He has retreated to a neutral place
underground
where the poetry of his loss
gives him voice
in the pounding keyboard,
his metronome,
ransacking the corners of his brain,
Ben Gaying the pain away
with delicate tidbits
that force the screams in.

Storm warnings abound
wrapped helter-skelter in joyless
 drapery
waters about to blossom indelicately.

#

About the Poet;
Sy Roth is a retired school administrator and has finally found the sounds of silence and the time to think whole thoughts. This has led him to find words and the ability to shape them.

 He has published in Visceral Uterus, Amulet, BlogNostics, Every Day Poets, Barefoot Review, Haggard and Halloo, Misfits Miscellany and The Eloquent Atheist.  Recently, he won a poetry contest sponsored by Newsday.

Welcome Home

Photo by Daniel J. Pool

Townie
Kevin P. Keating-1-

Morgan Fay lived with her ailing mother in a terraced row house of crumbling brick and calcified limestone that teetered on the left bank of a river whose swift waters twisted through the center of town.  She commuted to the university every day, rain or shine, though often it seemed in rain, on a rattling bicycle that looked as though some madman with a blowtorch and welder had assembled the thing from dozens of antique parts.  That her people were natives of these hills and valleys--broad-shouldered laborers toiling in the steel mills, bruised and broken-boned brawlers knocking back beers in the smoky saloons, slouched and slow-witted reapers of rotten luck smiling dully at insubstantial specters on a flickering TV--came as no surprise to me, but I liked this about her, liked her small town values, her lack of pretension, her faded jeans, the holes in the sleeves of her flannel shirts, the mud caked to the soles of her heavy, black boots.  She gave the impression of knowing her way around the world, a cartographer confident of her powers, and she was wise enough to steer clear of those cynical, self-absorbed students whose idyllic, suburban upbringing had sabotaged their capacity for simple, human compassion.

I first met Morgan in French 101 when we were both freshman, but we didn’t become romantically involved until we accompanied our professor to France during the spring semester of our senior year.  I had spoken to her in class from time to time, using only the most formal française, but I lacked the courage to ask her, in timorous and tongue-tied English, if she cared to join me for lunch or go out for beer and pizza, and during my four years at the university I never ran into her at any of the wild parties along fraternity row.  On campus she was practically an outsider, scoffed at or ignored by her more fortunate peers, but in France she seemed if not like a native then at least like an expatriate, an American poet or artist eking out a humble but happy existence on foreign soil.  She navigated the bustling boulevards of Paris and the narrow lanes of Nice with great confidence, and she politely directed our group to the famous monuments and museums whenever our bumbling professor became hopelessly lost but was too stubborn to admit it.

“I’m impressed by your sense of direction,” I told her one afternoon as we finished our simple but delicious lunch of quiche poireuax at one of the ubiquitous boulangeries on the square in Avignon.  The other members of our class had already gone off to explore the town.  The plan was to meet up later at the hotel and then see an operetta by Offenbach at the local theater, but I had serious doubts they would successfully find their way back.  “You’ve been to France before, I take it.”

She laughed.  “No, I just memorized all of the maps before we got here. I’ve been looking at maps of France ever since I was a kid. Tell me what you’d like to see and I’ll lead the way.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind checking out the old palace first.”

“S’il vous plaît, monsieur, suivez-moi.”  She was already pushing her chair away from the table when she suddenly stopped and said, “Oh, wait a minute! It would be criminal of us, wouldn’t it, to visit the palace without a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape? Come on. I know a shop that sells some good wines at a reasonable price. Saw it in my guidebook. Memorized the address. Memorized everything.”

With bottle in hand we trudged up the hill to the Palais des Papes.  We wandered through its shadowy chambers and cold corridors and paused to marvel at the painted walls and ceilings in the cavernous gothic chapels.  After our tour, we sat in the courtyard under the shade of a chestnut tree and admired the view of la vieille ville and its red rooftops.  We sipped our wine from plastic cups, and Morgan told me about life in the ugly little row house that, with each passing year, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the treacherous mudflats, how as a child she watched in alarm as the river crested its banks just below her bedroom window, and how she shut her eyes and tried to pretend it was the Seine.  France was all she ever thought about--visiting France, living in France, writing a novel about her adventures and romantic entanglements in France.  She’d been saving up for this trip for years.  Of course, she really had no business spending her money on such an extravagance, not while her mother struggled to pay the bills and earn enough extra cash to buy cigarettes.

Morgan shook her head.  “She has emphysema. I think the woman is suicidal. She’s made a mess of her life. I’m not going to end up like that.”

I took a long sip before speaking again.  “Well…now that you’re here, what do you think? Has it been a dream come true?”

With an enigmatic smile she said, “It’s still too early to tell…”

Half drunk and giggling like children, we decided it might be fun to rent two bicycles and see a bit of the countryside.  We crossed the Rhône, leaving Avignon behind, and pedaled past ancient farms and acres of mature cherry trees.  One dusty road led to another, and by late afternoon, parched and exhausted, we stopped outside the gates of a vineyard where two men rolled big oak barrels toward the double doors of a winery.  Perhaps mistaking us for a young couple honeymooning in wine country, they invited us inside.  We followed them down a steep ramp into the welcome cool of the cellar where they poured generous samples of Tavel and Lirac into clean glasses.  Before long Morgan and I were very drunk and, if I recall correctly, we actually started singing French folksongs, plaintive ditties about love and heartbreak.  Impressed more by our ability to properly enunciate each word than to stay in tune, the men refilled our glasses and joined in the chorus.

It was late in the day when we decided to head back to the hotel.  We traveled down a dozen different roads, first north for several miles and then east, but we could not see the distant lights of Avignon, and it became obvious that we had lost our way.  Soon it was dusk and getting cold fast.  Morgan leaned her bike against one of the tall plane trees that lined the road and with a shiver bundled her thin jacket around her throat.

“Just let me get my bearings,” she said.  “I studied the street maps of the cities, not these rural roads.”  She stood on tip-toes and tried to peer over the sprawling vineyards. “Oh, hell, we’re never going to find our way back.”

“Civilization can’t be far off,” I said with some irritation.  I paced back and forth, wishing for another glass of wine, and then I noticed how she turned away from to me.  “Are you crying? Look, this is world-famous Provence. Someone will come to our rescue.”

“I’m a fool. I led you all the way out here. See, I really don’t know anything at all.  This isn’t turning out the way I envisioned it.”

“Nothing ever does.”

Emboldened by the wine and using the cold night air as a pretense to hold her in my arms, I started rubbing her shoulders and then, very slowly, I let my promiscuous fingers glide ever lower along her spine until they slid snugly into the back of her pants.  Did she stiffen and try to pull away?  Did she give a little whimper of alarm?  I think so, but at that moment, in the darkest recesses of my brain where the lustful monsters lurked and waited their chance to escape the torturous confines of self-restraint, I believed, as boys of privilege so often do, that I had an absolute right to molest this small town naïf, almost an obligation to the other members of my tribe to take full advantage of this unlikely situation, and before I knew it, my mouth was brushing softly against her flushed cheeks and then, an instant later, pressing against her trembling lips.

We stood there for what seemed like an hour before a car trundled up the hill, and the amused driver, a little old lady with a yapping Bichon Frise on her lap, was kind enough to pull over and direct us back to town.       

-2-

A few months later, after we received our diplomas, Morgan and I moved into an apartment a short distance from the university, a one-bedroom unit with beige carpets and dirty white walls, a dun-colored shell that seemed intentionally designed to expunge from the minds of its broke and directionless tenants any traces of hope or dreams for the future, but unlike our neighbors, Morgan and I had a plan, a clear direction, and we were determined to stay on the right path.  We would take graduate courses together and then apply to the Ph.D. program.  In a few years time we would obtain teaching posts, write and publish books, attend academic conferences, move into a cozy colonial on a wooded hill with a big front porch that commanded a stunning view of the campus and its gothic bell tower.  We spent hours mapping out the details.

But then, only a few days before the semester started, Morgan became despondent.  Already struggling to pay back her student loans and not wanting to accrue any more debt, she decided to postpone graduate school and work for a year to save some money, but in a dying, industrial town with no practical need for idealistic French majors, her options were limited, and she ended up waiting tables at a diner near the power plant, earning just enough cash to pay her half of the rent.

Late at night, exhausted from another long shift, she rode her squeaking bicycle back to the apartment, threw her purse down on the kitchen counter, and sorted through the pitiful pile of quarters and dimes and crumpled dollar bills she managed to collect from her working class customers.  After a few months, her weariness turned to resignation then outright defeat, and it was around this time that I first noticed her coarseness on full display.  By now I had come to accept the fact that she lacked the will power to return to school and that I’d been deceiving myself all along about her character, refusing to notice just how rough around the edges she could sometimes be.

“Why in the world did I get a degree in fucking French?” she would say.

To be fair I often wondered the same thing myself, but somehow, after two years of research and revision on my thesis about the more sordid stories of the syphilitic genius Guy de Maupassant, I managed to obtain my master’s degree in French literature, graduating with high honors.

I decided then that we both needed a change.  The truth was that I had met another woman in the graduate program, someone who had already published several papers in a number of important scholarly journals and who was determined to obtain a full professorship at the university.  In many ways she was the person I always hoped Morgan would one day become.  Though she’d never been to France, not yet, she possessed a kind of Continental sophistication and style.  Instead of wool caps, flannel shirts and steel-toed boots, she wore berets and blouses and bright silk scarves.

Because I didn’t want to feel guilty any more, didn’t want to continue sneaking around like a cheating spouse, I decided to break the news to Morgan after the graduation ceremony.  I expected a great Flaubertian gesture, a slap to the face, a threat of suicide, but Morgan only turned away from me and quietly sobbed.  That evening I packed up my things and left her sitting at one end of the couch, feet tucked beneath her legs, hands clasped between her knees.

“What will you do?” I asked.

“I’ll go to France,” she said in a quiet, measured way. “I’ll go and never come back to this hell-hole. I’ll do whatever it takes. I don’t care. But I’m not staying here.”

I felt almost embarrassed for her as she spoke these words, for making such an absurd and extravagant claim, but I only nodded.  “Yes, you deserve that. You deserve to go back.”

She looked at me and as coldly as she could said, “Yes, I do. And now would you please leave me the hell alone, you pretentious, patronizing asshole.”

I refused to let this comment pass.  She had wounded my pride, and now I wanted to do a little damage of my own.  The precise words I chose to inflict the wound I cannot recall, something along the lines of “Have a nice life, you lazy, inbred hick,” but I do remember how Morgan refused to acknowledge me as I hurried out the door.  She stared out the window, her long lashes matted with tears, and watched the ugly black river slither down the dirty hills and snake its way through the sinister town of her birth.

-3-

 After two more terrible years spent poring over the lice-infested pages of forgotten tomes on French naturalism, I completed my Ph.D. coursework, but when it came time to actually write my dissertation, a magnum opus on Émile Zola I had been promising my yawning advisors, I struggled to find a way to begin (or rather, I suppose, a way to finish my education).  I was stranded, as if some redoubtable god had picked me up and deposited me in the middle of a desert waste without any hope of rescue, and in order to survive I had to teach classes as a lowly adjunct, instructing bored and listless freshman who only wanted to fulfill their foreign language requirements and who proved utterly incapable of correctly pronouncing bonjour and adieu and parlez-vous anglais.  I came each day to class, bearing life-sustaining knowledge, but these mentally emaciated refugees, slumping ever lower in their seats, refused to accept my precious gift.

I soon lost patience with them, but it wasn’t until the postcards from France started showing up in my department mailbox that I became truly irritable.  Into the quiet classroom I would storm and in my most fraudulently authoritative voice shout: “Pop quiz!”  As my grumbling students conjugated endless lists of verbs, I would march up and down the rows of desks, flipping through the glossy photos of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

So Morgan Fey had made it back to France after all and was now “living in a tiny but charming flat overlooking the Place de la Contrescarpe in Paris.”  I remembered the Place well and recalled how, as an undergraduate, I drank sangrias there one warm day in spring, a magical moment in my life, but whatever magic I once possessed had vanished.  Here at long last was the first serious crisis of my adult life.  Maybe, I thought, I had gone as far as a person of middling intellect could possibly go in the fiercely competitive world of academia; maybe I would never finish my dissertation; maybe I would never again have an opportunity to visit France.

“Maybe?” I said aloud.  “Ha! Almost certainly!

My students looked up from their papers, startled.

That December Morgan sent me a letter, saying she would be back in town to visit her mother for the holidays and that it would be nice to see me.  I was jealous of her small victory and resisted the urge to accept her invitation, but in the end I went to the café she suggested.  Before I entered the door I saw her face framed and hanging in the frosted window.  Even from a distance I could tell that she had changed.  There was something new about her, something sly, brilliant, wicked, obscurely frightening.  Paris had given her a kind of sophistication I always wished she possessed when she lived with me.  Instantly I recognized her as the sort of woman I could bring to a faculty party and introduce to the chairman of the modern languages department, the sort of woman who would sing my praises and encourage me to persevere in my studies.

I stepped inside, and before I could say hello she kissed me on each cheek.  For an hour or so we sipped espresso and talked about the different direction our lives had taken.  I asked about her time in France: What did she do for a living?  How did one go about getting a work visa?  How did she cope with the notorious French bureaucracy? Where did she buy her breads and cheeses?  Had she made many friends? Her responses were deliberately vague, but I didn’t find anything suspicious in this.  She despised me for what I’d done to her, that was clear, and had come to the café merely to antagonize me.

“Almost finished with your Ph.D?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, I’m putting the finishing touches on my dissertation. I’m simply awaiting final approval from my committee. It’s been a challenge, of course, but you know me. I’m pretty determined.”

“Oh, yes, I have complete faith in you,” she said, and I thought I detected a hint of sarcasm in her voice.  I also noticed how affected she sounded, how she pronounced every word with the faintest accent, and how she stared at me with vengeful concentration, how her eyes flashed with rage.  “You’ll finish your dissertation and then what? Come to Paris? Find a full-time professorship? Publish a book? These are the many ways in which a man can earn a reputation and garner respect from his peers, no?”

We said our goodbyes and agreed to meet again next year, and as I watched her turn the corner, I suddenly felt feeble, empty, alone.  The agony was exquisite, I never realized just how gratifying self-pity could be, and I wanted it to last forever.

-4-

As promised, Morgan and I continued our conversation one year later, and things went so well that we now meet every Friday before Christmas, a sort of holiday tradition that has continued for over a decade.  Our annual rendezvous has become, at least for me, a ritual, a sacred obligation, but a shameful one that must be concealed from the condemning eyes of the uninitiated, like the evil practices of those fabled cannibals who inhabited the caves of Lascaux and reputedly drank the blood and ate the flesh of their sworn enemies.  I used to look forward to these encounters because I knew that her story, like mine, was a total sham, an evil fairytale concocted by a sick mind, one that, sooner or later, would lead to her complete and total undoing, and I wanted to be there to see how she abruptly and predictably dwindled away to nothing at all.

A few months after our second meeting, while driving to class one morning and dreading the moment I would have to face my sneering students, I heard a familiar squeak and caught in the rearview mirror a glimpse of someone who looked a lot like Morgan race by on a bicycle.  Instead of turning into the faculty parking lot, I made an abrupt U-turn and shadowed her.

I’ve heard of a phenomenon where people, haunted by painful memories and succumbing to the weakness of wishful thinking, believe they see in the faces of total strangers the visage of departed friends and family members, and I must confess that for one terrible moment, maybe as a result of my spiral into depression and intellectual paralysis, I had summoned forth the ghost of an old love, but the longer I followed her the more convinced I became that this was not the warm-hearted girl I once adored, certainly not the cultivated woman who now lived so close to the Panthéon and the Sorbonne.  This was an apparition, a waxen-faced witch clad in a magnificent mess of flapping black rags, her wild wiry hair trailing behind her as she sailed through the pestilential air on a contraption dreamed up in a lunatic’s basement workshop, a rickety thing pieced together by candlelight with broken bits of discarded junk.

It wasn’t until she reached the diner on the outskirts of town that I knew for certain that it was Morgan and not some phantasm.  She threw her bike down on the ground and trudged up the worn stairs into the burning florescent lights, her face stern, her skin ravaged by cold, lashing winds.  For a moment I considered going inside and confronting her, but for reasons I can’t quite explain, I parked behind a pickup with silhouettes of naked women on the mud flaps and a massive set of truck nuts dangling proudly from the rear bumper.  Through the windows of the diner I watched as Morgan donned an apron and then for six long hours waited on customers.  At the end of her shift, I followed her back to the row house on the edge of the river and listened to her argue with her mother.  Their awful shouts erupted from the decaying brick and stonework and spilled ominously from beneath the drawn shades in crushed piles of smoldering yellow light.

After midnight I drove back to my apartment and sorted through the postcards she’d sent me.  Had I examined them more closely, I would have noticed how they’d all been doctored, how the stamps and cancellation marks were fabricated, some more carefully than others.  She must have used old stamps from her first trip to France and then, with a faded black marker and template, drew elaborate lines and circles and dates.  After doctoring each postcard, she must have hand delivered them to my department mailbox, creeping quietly through the halls, holding her breath, hoping I would not catch her in the act.       

For weeks and months and years I continued to watch Morgan Fey.  I watched as she wiped down dirty tables in the diner.  I watched her in the grocery store, in the library, in the Laundromat.  I watched her in the park, in the mall, in the movie theater.  One night I watched her ride in the back of an ambulance with her mother.  I watched her visit the hospital every day.  I watched her stand beside a cheap casket in the cemetery near the river where green pools and eddies formed along the muddy banks and threatened to wash away the bones of the dead.  I watched her go to the bars with her friends until the early morning hours.  I watched in fascination as a young man in coveralls pushed her from a bowling alley and dragged her by the wrist over to his car where he tried to force himself on her.  After a violent struggle she managed to escape, but this sort of thing happened more than once.  Usually she did not struggle, especially when she was drunk and stumbling and laughing raucously, and she even seemed to surrender to the man with something like gratitude.

In short, I watched her life unfold one terrible day at a time, and I waited patiently, year after year, for our next meeting.

-5-

More than a decade has now gone by, and even though our situation has become quite monstrous and we have grown weary and indifferent toward a life that seems more and more unreal, Morgan and I continue doggedly, perhaps even dutifully, to meet every year around Christmastime.  We have both changed a great deal.  Morgan’s beauty, if it could ever have been described as such, has faded.  Rather than winsome and wise, she looks outraged and calculating as if wondering if she’ll have to pick up the check again.  Every year she offers to buy, and every year I take her up on it.  She still wears the same borrowed--dare I say stolen?--clothes that she cannot afford, haute couture, stylish, trendy.  To what lengths does she go to get her hair and nails done for this brief appointment?

As for me, well, I’ve had fearful occasion to think back on my life, and I am revolted by my unspeakably cruel, bestial, black-hearted youth and the senseless darkness I have helped to perpetuate.  It shows on my face, especially around the eyes and the downward turn of my mouth and the hint of gray at my temples.  If I know Morgan’s secret, she certainly knows mine.  My lies are just as outrageous and transparent as hers.  I tell her that I am now an associate professor, that I have written several highly regarded books of literary criticism, that I am often asked to give talks at prestigious academic conferences, but of course nothing has changed for me.  Instead of lecturing graduate students on Baudelaire and Proust and Le Clézio, I teach incoming freshman how to speak elementary French, and sometimes, when money is tight, I do a little private tutoring.  As for my girlfriend, she left me when she finally understood that I was incapable of completing my dissertation, that I was an incompetent hack, that I was in fact doomed to live out the rest of my days as an adjunct, which, aside from being a groundskeeper, is perhaps the most contemptible position in the world of academia.

Morgan and I don’t say much, and when we do speak we don’t smile, not once, not ever.  In this regard we are probably more French than the French themselves.  The Parisians in particular despise Americans because, they claim, we smile all the time, like fools, like simpletons, like drooling idiots who have been deprived of oxygen, and only stupid people are happy, or pretend to be happy, all the time.  Life, so say the clever French, is a serious and sorrowful affair, and therefore one must wear an appropriately sober expression--that of thoughtfulness, deep brooding, constant vigilance.  Morgan and I certainly concur with this insight.  Instead of coffee or espresso, we’ve switched to a proper apéritif and now brood over a cheap bottle of wine.  Sometimes we split a pack of cigarettes and sit outside in the cold night air at table covered in an intricate latticework of ice. 

And so we continue to play our charade and monitor the other’s failures, but if there is one thing we both know for certain it is this: we are equals now, townies, and we will never escape the epic boredom of our wretched routines.  Maybe one day we’ll get married, have children, make more townies.  I think we are in love.  We must be, and this idea alone, that we still care deeply for each other, is the only hope that our story might end happily.

Fin

About the Author;
Kevin P. Keating's essays and fiction have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Identity Theory, Perigee, Slow Trains, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Subtle Tea, Ascent Aspirations, The Mad Hatter’s Review, The North Coast Review, Tattoo Highway and many others.

His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (by Thomas E. Kennedy) and the StorySouth Million Writers Award.

Keating's novel, The Natural Order of Things, is scheduled for publication in November 2012 by Aqueous Books.

He currently teach English at Baldwin-Wallace College near Cleveland, Ohio.

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