JRR Tolkien Award

goes to

Jennifer van den Bogerd

Fenwick, ON, Canada

First Place

(Category: High School)

Bio:

Canadian home-educated student, Jennifer van den Bogerd, envisions a writing career in her future. Only seventeen, she’s been published in poetry and essay anthologies, had an article published in a national equestrian magazine under her pseudonym J.L. Orchard, and co-writes a popular E-zine for horse enthusiasts called Cinch Magazine. But as all writers know, the writing life has its valleys. Exhausted by the dozen stories Jen attempted for this contest, she returned to one of her earliest works. Through extensive revision and the support of her critique partner, Kate, The Rain Sequence emerged as the story of a teen who finds freedom in an unexpected way. In much the same way, Jen found freedom from months of difficult writing through the support of her parents, and from God, the author of our lives.

Website: www.cinchmagazine.com.

To contact Jennifer van den Bogerd you may seek her contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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THE RAIN SEQUENCE

by

Jennifer van den Bogerd

Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

Rain pelted the windshield of the Ford Focus as Tania Morris cruised Toronto’s roadway. Black morning air glittered in the glare of headlights.

Water streamed over the car hood like honey glaze, but no matter the conditions outside, inside the car, eighteen-year-old Tania bobbed her head to the beat of Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

Okay, so it was an old song. She’d never admit it to her friends but she actually liked it.

She tweaked the volume up a notch and jigged to the music while B.J. Thomas crooned the chorus.

Listening to her parent’s music in her parent’s car felt like an anthem of victory. It was like having every leash they had ever tied to her reaching toward her but not reeling her in. Now they were the ones who were collared.

The windshield wipers snapped back and forth across the glass. She leaned against the steering wheel and squinted to see ahead. Through the constant downpour, the airport lights twinkled on the black horizon.

Tania grinned. Freedom.

Her childhood fantasy of a princess not ruled by a queen would come true – the moment Flight 32 lifted off.

The song bounced through its verses and her foot weighed against the gas. The Ford skiied over the cement with the early-morning commuters.

No one, Tania suspected, had a destination quite like hers.

Tania tousled a loose cinnamon bang behind her ear and mouthed the words that boomed from the radio. Her parent’s would freak when she returned from this trip, hair 22-karat blonde and upped in a French Twist.

Tania tipped her Leafs hockey mug to her upturned lips. One week from now her mistaken identity as “little miss do nothing unexpected” would be gone with the wind. At college she – yes she – would be reining in the gazes.

Roll out the red carpet guys! The Paperbag Princess is no more!

Tania checked the clock as she settled her mug back in its holder. 6:28a.m.

Good.

Her parents always slept as if stoned until their alarm blipped, at seven exactly every Sunday. When they awoke, they’d probably notice the Ford missing before they realized she’d left. Then they’d see the note “considerately” placed on Tania’s pillow. With it they would know where to find the car, and if they dug for information they might learn from the airport which plane she’d taken … But from now until the end of the week, she would be free from “home contact.”

Tania blinked at the sun visor where an elastic band secured her many dreams – all of which were soon to come true. They inspired her whenever the lights stood red too long, and encouraged her to keep straight when the light blinked green.

A paperclip gripped a printed email from France to the elastic. She scanned over the words. Waiting for you in Paris – Marjory.

Marjory Cerise Chantel, a foreign exchange student from last semester was a better friend than most people. She promised a week of adventure in Paris. All Tania had to do was get on a plane and escape for the March Break of her life.

Any punishment her parents could conjure up would dissolve in the thrill of revving around the Arc de Triomphe with Marjory the day they both turned nineteen, not to mention a picnic and wine beneath the Eiffel Tower.

She would return from Paris a new person. An independent, free-thinking individual.

Paris would change her life.

Her parent’s righteous opinions about obedience and moral behavior would mean nothing to the new Tania. Nothing.

A church drifted by on her left. Its white steeple and cross remained visible in the rearview mirror as she neared the final intersection between her and Toronto’s International Airport.

Her toe hardened on the gas and the Ford careened through the wet sheen on the road. Traffic was tight, but not so tight that she couldn’t dance the car from lane to lane and sneak ahead of the other commuters that had less important places to be.

A quick glance at her speedometer gave Tania visions of a tailing police cruiser. Then at the clock …

6:51.

She tap-danced her fingers on the wheel. She’d be on that flight before her parents knew what happened …

B.J. Thomas ran through the final verse of Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head.

The rain click, click, clicked on the car’s body.

Her bang fell loose and she flicked it from her eye. Her finger nicked the visor. With a light splash, the paperclip plopped into her mug.

“Oh …” Great, metal poisoning in my mocha.

Tania fished two fingers through the coffee. Her mother’s tiny cross-shaped keychain caught her eye where it dangled from the ignition. She read the words scripted in it:

Where are you going?

Marjory’s email stared at her from where it’d fallen on her lap.

Waiting for you in Paris.

The intersection’s yellow light flashed red and Tania’s foot searched for the brakes.

The car sped on.

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Blackness.

Thin bars of light slid slowly downward through the darkness.

Their fuzzy edges became solid, then bright.

Tania squinted at the peach-colored ceiling and sighed. She dragged her hand from beneath the plush hotel comforter, smacked her blue wristwatch into silence, then flopped her arm against the pillow.

She couldn’t help but smile.

Paris.

Pushing herself upright, Tania hit the power button on the TV remote and watched it sizzle to life. Geometric-shaped cartoons traipsed across the screen while Tania buffed the many wrinkles from her blouse. Wow, I can’t believe I slept in my clothes – Then again … who cares?

A smile bounced to her lips at the thought of ruling her own life for an entire week – in Paris!

She flipped the TV to a news station.

For a moment, Tania heard her dad’s voice reciting a familiar fable, one of her favorites about the duck and the hunting hound. She swallowed hard, made a visual note of the clipart sun that the weather man presented, and switched to an English channel.

Last thing she wanted was to think about home.

A Christian talk show rattled on Channel 14: the Cross-Roads Station. The topic: missing persons.

Boring!

Tania killed the power and tossed the remote on the end of the bed. She would not be distracted by the outside world.

The phone yodeled from the night stand. “Hey?” Coughing lightly into the receiver, Tania rattled off a sentence, the translation dented by her mom’s Italian influence on Tania’s voice. “Allô, Qui est à l’appareil?”

“Hey went better.”

Recognizing the French voice, Tania bounced a barefoot party dance on the bed. “Marjory! How are you? I’m here! I’m in Paris! Can you believe it?!”

Her friend’s accent remained present, even in fluent English. “I believe it! How was your flight?”

Tania scratched her forehead through her bangs. “Oh, fine …” She must have slept harder than she thought. She couldn’t quite recall that part of the trip. “I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t, right?”

“Right. So my mom is taking my aunt to market in an hour. After they go, I will escape and pick you up. Then the whole day is ours!”

“Awesome. I’ll be waiting.” She wiggled her legs, the energy pulsing through her to do another jig. “Can’t wait!”

“Me too. Hey, I’ll talk to you in a bit, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay,” Tania replied. “Hey, too bad your aunt is staying at your place. If she wasn’t, I could have. Then we could party every night!”

“Yeah, maybe.” Marjory farewelled in French and Tania replied with, “See you in a bit,” before sliding the phone onto its hook.

Tania scanned the room and spotted her suitcase on the floor by the window. She thumbed through the neatly folded clothes and chose a set to wear around town. The khaki blouse and mini skirt would have to do until she could update her wardrobe with some French class.

Tania remembered her plane ticket and unzipped her purse. She shuffled through the contents. Where on earth…?

“It’s not here.” She flipped the purse over and shook it out. No flight receipt, no where! She hadn’t lost it, had she?

“Mom’s going to freak…” What was she thinking? She wagged her head to clear it. Her mom would freak that she bought a plane ticket to France in the first place. The fact that she’d then lost it was a minor of a minor technicality.

Tania plopped the purse on top of its spilled contents and faced the mirror. She would do things on a “need to do” basis. Finding a lost ticket, she did not need to do, right now.

The mirror reflected her early morning rag-doll hairdo and Tania let the tension from her shoulders in one long sigh. “Tania, this trip is so worth the aftermath. From this moment on all ‘parent’ thoughts are officially banned!” She poked her fingers at her temples, drilling that statement into her mind. “I am going to enjoy Paris.”

Tania picked her jacket off the coat hook and resolved to explore the street in front of the hotel until Marjory arrived. But for no reasonable reason at all, she was still wincing at her vow.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Tania nudged the glass door of the Cerise Hotel into the world outside. Misty clouds hung overhead and damp air nipped at her cheeks like the salty breeze that blows across the sea. People hustled shoulder to shoulder along the roadside and even spilled into the clustered avenue. Oddly, street performers, mimes, and more bounded between the crowd.

It was a fanfare of color: yellow and red striped hats, pink jackets with orange buttons. Some of the performers blew fire from their mouth while others swallowed knives. One mime with a blob of red paint on his lips jokingly pouted at a grim-faced passerby. The clown costumes seemed a cosmic clash of color to the drab grays and black of the everyday commuters.

Tania stepped into the current of people, feeling invisible in the crowd as person after person knocked her shoulder and no one apologized. The clowns danced and skipped from one side of the road to the other with painted smiles on their white faces. It was a magnificent parade of entertainers but no one seemed amused. No one, other than her, even seemed to notice them.

Mimes folded their hands as if praying but instead bounced on their knees like a child begging for a toy. Then they sprung back to their feet, wagging their fingers in a “no” to the child.

Tania frowned and tried to push against the flow of people. How could they mock prayer, like this?

One mime jolted to a halt in front of Tania. He jigged his white-gloved hands in front of him from left to right as if they clasped a steering wheel. Then he leaned his head against his shoulders, his eyes closed with a whimsical but haughty, “I’m better than you,” smile rocking on his pastel lips.

She tried to push past the performer, but was carried backwards by the constant flow of commuters, all headed in the same direction.

The clown jumped from his invisible car and plucked a photograph of a baby from his shirt pouch. Stroking and cooing over the picture of the infant, he faked tears and Tania felt brine boil in her stomach.

He dropped to his knees and prayed over the photo.

Tania coiled her hands into fists ready to barrel forward through the crowd when the mime leapt to his feet once more. He tore the photo in half and thrust it at the road where, across the street, a tourist carriage awaited. Except it wasn’t a carriage for touring. It and the horses were coal black.

A hurst.

The mime made smug expressions, sticking his tongue at the invisible parents still kneeling in prayer.

Tania felt the brine thicken into a lead ball. His cheap performance wasn’t mocking prayer. He was mocking her!

The mime tilted his head sideways, one finger pointed down the road indicating she should move with the crowd. Huge horned gargoyles glared from the buildings that lined the street, their claws clutching their pedestals. And the black horses pawed the cobble lane, the pair snorting and whinnying with impatience.

Tears stung the back of her eyes. Each inhale seemed to vacuum an invisible plastic bag tighter to her gaped lips.

Heat bubbled under her skin, the lack of oxygen collapsing her lungs. She squeezed sideways toward the hotel – she had to get out of here!

At the last moment she burst through the final thread of people and flopped against the hotel wall, huffing.

How could they act this way?! How could they understand her or her motives for leaving?

The performer stared through the net of people at her as rain spattered around them like a shower of volcanic ash. His brows tightened with disapproval. A second later, he dissolved behind the crowd of solemn faces.

Tania sank against the gray-hammered stone, regulating her breath in hope that the thump of her heart would follow. Rain streaked her face, and a shiver chilled her skin.

This part of France she did not like.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The moment Marjory arrived, Tania did her best to shove that morning’s misadventure to the back of her mind. But even after they’d sprawled their picnic blanket across the grass near the Eiffel Tower, the worse-than-hell experience remained vivid in her mind. Where was the freedom France was supposed to bring?

“Whoa!” Marjory’s voice wobbled, the cork in her wine bottle popping over her head. Rose-colored liquid sieved down the bottle’s neck and Marjory dunked the spout over two glasses. “Voila.” She handed one glass to Tania.

Tania tasted the wine and the sweet tang of grapes sizzled on her tongue. She pursed her lips and nodded. “Hmhm. Good. Very good.”

Marjory smiled and clinked glasses with Tania.

After sipping their drinks, they both leaned back and sighed in unison. Marjory’s sounded of satisfaction, but Tania’s was of relief that nothing weird could possibly happen at the Eiffel Tower.

While Marjory reminisced about their time together in school, Tania gazed through the spritzing fountains at the opposite bank of the Tower’s sapphire pool. A couple with small children picnicked on that bank. Their toddlers danced about the family blanket, their giggles causing the air to bubble with memories of Tania’s childhood.

One child, a tiny girl with golden curls, skipped away from her family toward the pool. Her dollish smile seemed perfectly carefree and innocent.

Had Tania once smiled that way? Wasn’t that the sort of smile she was meant to rediscover in Paris?

The girl spun in circles, arms sprawled to the heavens. A laugh giggled from her mouth, but with each delicate spin, her toes came an inch closer to the pool’s edge.

Tania felt her heart creep into her throat blocking the way of her breaths. Didn’t anyone see the child wandering?

The girl leapt into the air, her fingers waggling at a butterfly. As if in slow motion, her tiny feet made their return for earth, but –

Tania felt momentum rush through her, bidding her to burst toward the river and save the girl’s fall, but she didn’t move. She stiffened. Her gaze locked in horror on the child whose body tipped forward in a slow motion collapse toward the water. The girl’s fingers fanned open as if she could clasp an invisible barrier that would keep her from falling.

The girl’s fingers broke the water’s surface, her body …

Two arms seat-belted across the girl’s stomach, and drew her into the safety of her father’s hug.

A wavering sigh relieved Tania’s clogged lungs, and amazingly, from this distance she heard the father whisper into the little girl’s ear, “Where are you going?”

It was the softest question Tania had ever heard spoken, and it almost didn’t seem a question – but guidance, directing the infant into her father’s protection.

Where are you going? She had heard those words before?

Tania felt a tear tingle behind her eye and Marjory bopped Tania’s shoulder, jolting her back to reality.

“Wine too strong for you?”

Tania wiped a drip of liquid from her lips. “No. It’s fine.”

“Oh. Good.” Marjory leaned back on one arm, wine glass in the other. “Then it’s just you.” Her eyebrow lifted like the curl of a question mark.

Tania paused with the glass to her lips. Oh how she could use a dad’s hug right now.

She watched the little girl sink her chin into her father’s shoulder, the image escorting Tania back to those moments with her family on a Sunday afternoon.

No.

Tania looked over her shoulder at Marjory’s diverted gaze, the French girl’s green eyes hinting boredom.

I can’t think about this … I can’t lose my perfect holiday.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Eleanor Morris paced the hospital waiting room and watched as the wall clock’s thin hand dropped to 7:31 a.m. She cupped the Ford’s keys in her fists and couldn’t help but read the inscription on the metal cross again.

Where are you going?

If she lost her daughter now – where would Tania go?

Eleanor closed her hands and held them trembling to her lips. God, show my daughter the truth!

Wallace Morris reached his arm around Eleanor’s waist and she buried her head in his neck. “What’s taking so long?” she whimpered, biting her knuckles.

A nurse wandered through the doorway and Eleanor’s gaze leapt to the woman.

“Mr. and Mrs. Morris?”

“That’s us!” She clasped Wallace’s knitted sweater and dragged him towards the nurse. “That’s us. How’s Tania? How’s our daughter?” She asked, then bit her knuckle all the harder – perhaps only God could answer that now.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Marjory, do you believe in salvation? I mean in Heaven and Hell?” Tania didn’t know why she asked, but now that she had, she wondered if it was more a question for herself.

Did she believe in Heaven and Hell? If asked, she might have described two experiences that day as gateways to Heaven and Hell. The jester, without question, reminded her of her childhood impression of Hell and the grim reaper, but what about the father rescuing his child?

Marjory veered the Mini Cooper to the side of the road not far from the roundabout of the Arc de Triomphe.

“What are you doing?” Weren’t they going to circle the monument and whoop it out to celebrate their birthdays?

Marjory popped the gear shift into “park” with an attitude Tania had never seen in the care-free, fun-loving French girl. “What are you doing? I mean, what are you talking about?” Her voice sharpened into a whisper. “I thought you came to France to escape your parent’s religious views and yet you’ve been distracted all day and now you bring up, for the tenth time since we left the Tour Eiffel – what else – religion!” She plopped back against her seat. “Must I hear anymore about your family and their views? And in answer to your question, if Heaven is anything like your life: church on Sunday, devotions everyday, a guilty conscience about spending time with your bestfriend in Paris – Hell sounds pretty good.”

A clump congested in Tania’s throat and she couldn’t bring herself to look at Marjory. “I’m … sorry.”

Her voice still heavy, Marjory replied, “Yeah. You know what, it’s okay.” She plucked the keys from the ignition. “But, I could go for some extra caffeine right now. So … let’s head to the Café and if we need to we can talk. Okay?”

Tania nodded solemnly. “Okay.” Marjory’s hand clasped the car door ready to pop it open and Tania felt compelled to add, “I am sorry, Marjory. I expected France to start me on my ‘new life,’ but…”

Marjory mushed her lips together then forced a half-playful smile. “Don’t worry. It will.”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Wallace massaged his wife’s shoulder as they drew near the room he sensed was his daughter’s. “It’ll be alright,” he whispered.

At the sight of their child lying motionless on the hospital bed, Eleanor gasped behind her hand and he had to swab a rush of tears from his own eyes. Dear God, let my little girl be alright!

The police’s description of the accident scene had scarred a painful image in his mind. The metal body of the Ford wrenched around and beneath the bumper of the transport truck, the driver’s seat virtually the only thing still intact. Thank God for small miracles.

Wallace slid the curtain closed behind them and crept toward his daughter. Despite her injuries, with her eyes closed she looked like the little girl he’d tucked to sleep so many nights.

Eleanor held her hands in a loose fist near her lips. “Oh baby …” She stroked her daughter’s bangs from the girl’s ashen forehead and Wallace leaned forward to whisper into his daughter’s ear.

“The nurse said we could talk, Tania. She said you would hear us. So I’m going to talk.” He tried to swallow the frogs that scuttled through his throat as he spoke. “I know – I know you didn’t like to listen when I talked about God. But you need to know. You need to know. Sometimes God brings us into circumstances, like this, to show us … To show us that we can’t do things on our own.”

Wallace tensed, hoping for some sign of understanding from Tania. He stroked her forehead and talked, but it felt more as if he spoke to one of her dolls. Could she really hear him?

When she was a child he had told stories to help her understand the Christian values he wanted her to learn. Those stories were some of his fondest shared memories and he hoped they were some of hers.

“You had some good stories yourself. Do you remember this one, baby?” He smudged a tear from his eye, but another escaped over his cheek and rolled under his chin. He looked aside, swallowing over and over but the frogs only scuffled higher.

Eleanor stroked his back, dabbing her own eyes. “Go on dear. Which one is it?”

Wallace clenched his eyes, the drip of rain on the window drumming in his ears. “Once upon a time …” His throat bobbed. “There was a duck, and three hunting hounds …”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Marjory was right. Tania couldn’t forfeit the Paris experience to worry over her parent’s teachings of “salvation” and “only one chance at eternal life.”

She slipped onto the street side café’s metal chair opposite Marjory, then exhaled hard to release the tension from her shoulders.

Marjory stared at the table and twirled her cappuccino straw.  “So, what happened to you,” she asked. “I mean you were practically the biggest agnostic in school – or that’s the impression you gave.”

Tania nibbled her lip. She hadn’t always been an agnostic. She’d once believed every word her parent’s spoke of God and his love and desire to work in her life.

Marjory settled her plastic cup on the table and sighed peaceably. She had loosened up since their sudden halt on the roadside and adjusted to an even more casual attitude as she spoke, her lips hinting a smirk. “I mean, you remind me of that one fable. Don’t stop me if you’ve heard it.”

Tania felt a smile lift to her lips for the first time that day. Her friend’s lightened tone felt good – Magical.

Tania curled her hand over her coffee mug and let the heat fill her palm like a wool mitt. Marjory recalled her story, a fable Tania did know – in fact she knew it quite well.

It was about a duckling that befriended hunting hounds and decided it would rather live with the hounds than in the pond. But when the hounds went with their master in search of game, they forfeited their friendship with the duckling and attacked it. Then the father duck appeared and flew above the hounds distracting them so the duckling could escape to the water. The father duck was captured by the hounds, but its duckling was saved.

There had been a twist to the story, Tania recalled, that had made it funny – or maybe it was the accents her dad had given the animals that had made her giggle as a child. But Marjory’s purpose in telling the story was lost on Tania. Her thoughts were on the fable’s meaning …

She was the duckling that befriended the hounds, her friends that made a mockery of her parent’s religion. She became an agnostic in order to feel akin to her friends. She’d joined Marjory in Paris when she knew her parents would disapprove … She’d allowed herself to forget common sense and be swept into believing life could be better without her parent’s hands holding her back – But hadn’t their hands actually been guiding her?

Perhaps the adult duck was Jesus, the one who, according to her parents, had died for her. What a waste that would be if she left the pond and returned to the hounds.

Something plunked in her mug causing a splash to sprit into the air. Great, rain. She bounced from her seat ready to shield her head from a sudden on-pour. She started to warn Marjory, “Looks like…” but instead of Marjory, Tania saw an empty chair.  “What the…?!”

She spun in a circle, scanning every face in the café and on the street. People don’t just poof into thin air!

Or do they?

She dropped her stare to the coffee mug, then picked it off the table and peered in.

There at the bottom, resting on top of an oval coffee stain lay a paperclip.

What on earth? Tania clattered the mug against the table, and hurried alongside the road. I can’t breathe… Marjory, where are you?

A street performer bent over his guitar singing that old familiar tune, “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.”

That song? In France? In English?

Her gaze swung off the guitarist toward the road.

Voices buzzed through her. Her mother’s. Her father’s. Both. Another voice …

Where are you going, Tania?

In slow motion people crossed the street. Talked alongside the buildings.

In slow motion a red Ford Focus cruised in front of Tania. It moved so slow and carefully, yet its tires screeched. The driver glanced her way meeting Tania with the same face that looked at her each morning in the mirror, staring through her with dark hazel eyes.

Tania’s heart slammed against her ribs.

The vehicle’s wheels squealed on the cement.

Hiding her face in her hands, Tania spun from the road.

A newspaper stand faced her from across the sidewalk. The Daily’s headline glared at her in English: Waiting for you in Paris.

Full color photographs of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and a Toronto chapel peered from its inky cover, the words looping in her mind …

Waiting for you in Paris.

Waiting for you in Paris.

Waiting for you in …

The steady guitar thrums of Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

Cold shivered through her toes. Oh! She stood in a puddle! Raindrops quivered small rings in the water. But the sky above was clear. Blue.

Rainless.

Vehicles sputtered on the road. Voices chatted at the café. That song. All of it echoed from a distance – as if from the end of a hall.

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

Hurricane wind rammed her chest. Tania’s stomach folded and she staggered backwards. The wave struck again. She stumbled over her foot toward the street. No one turned to see her. No one noticed. Not even the guitarist.

Dad …

The French café went fuzzy in front of her. Again the throbs strobed through her like an electric shock.

Beep … Beep … Beep…

Headlights beamed at her.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Her toe clipped the curb.

Dad! Catch me!

Beep. Beep. Beep.

In the darkness someone’s arms encircled Tania and a voice whispered, “Where are you going?”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Streaks of white lined the blackness in Tania’s mind. Voices rushed around her. Someone shouted, “Clear!”

A throb stunned her body.

Then she lost all sense of this world.

The light dissipated. The voices sank to nothing. For eternity she seemed to lie there. Still. In the darkness.

Beep … Beep … Beep.

Her father’s voice sieved through the black curtain cloaking Tania’s vision, followed by her mother’s. Someone’s kiss stamped her forehead – to make her “boo boo” better.

Light overhead grew into a vivid white, void of shadow or shade but pure and endless.

Then dabs of red, blue and silver washed through the light like watercolor on paper, forming into faces – her mother’s and her father’s.

Her head clouded, Tania muttered her new realization, and wondered if the words came out aloud, “This isn’t Hell.”

A gasp sucked from her mother and she thrust her arms around Tania. “Baby! Oh, my baby!”

Squeezed by her mother, spots of pain twinged down Tania’s spine and the best smile she could muster was a wince – but it was heartfelt. She was home.

Her dad drew next to Tania on the opposite side of the bed and with a forgiving and grateful smile he closed her in his arms. “I love you honey. Don’t ever let something like this happen again, ever.”

The memory of the accident wandered back to her but, she knew the real accident she’d let happen long before. Tania’s eyes drifted closed and she tucked herself tighter into her parent’s embrace. “I won’t.”

A cell-phone’s jingle disrupted the peace and each party withdrew from the three-way hug with a light cough.

Her mom picked the purple vibrating phone from the chair next to Tania’s bed. Hesitantly, she handed it to Tania. “It’s for you.”

Tania read the number and guessed the caller’s name immediately – Marjory.

What would she tell her? The real Marjory knew nothing of Tania’s accident, or of the imaginary Paris that had changed her life.

She’d call Marjory back later, but for now … Tania heaved herself into a seated position, against the pang of bruised muscles. Her voice softened as she glanced between parents. “I’m not going.”

Her mother fiddled with her sleeve, her voice authoritative but gentle, “Of course you’re not. You’re in no condition…”

“No. I mean … That’s not why I’m not going.”

Both her parents looked at her, their eyes a little wider and the corners of their lips drawing upwards.

Tania reached her arms around her parent’s backs and buried her face in their shoulders. Snuggling her head in the warmth of their clothes, Tania felt a contented and peaceful smile spread through her. She snuck her gaze between their arms toward the window. Despite the spittle of rain outside, Tania sighed – and believed she could see God looking back through the rain-speckled glass.

Thanks for catching me.

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The 2010 Anonymously Sponsored

George Macdonald Award

Goes to:

Katherine Thompson

The Plains, OH

Third Place

(category:  19 and up)

Bio:

Katherine Thompson is a punster who always wins family poetry contests. Writing is however, an endeavor that can only be pursued in the corners of her life. She has strong opinions about humor and has made an intellectual hobby of refining and defining her sense of the absurd. She really enjoys Agatha Christie and is in the process of writing a book length analysis of the Christian worldview found therein.  Her foremost vocation is music, specifically the violin which she plays (odd word for it!) whenever and where ever (except nudist colonies) anyone will pay her. She just finished her MM in violin performance and will be working at Shar Music as she auditions for orchestral work.

To contact Katherine Thompson you may seek his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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They Left Us the Moon

Katherine Thompson

“More teeth than IQ, for all the people’s plaudits,” muttered old Professor Doctor Billy T. Kidd to himself as he read the evening news.

“These people! What a mindless mob of plebian drones…don’t they see that the fluctuations in the magnetic field are probably normal? How many thousand years have people populated the planet? Now, they think they control the magnetic field. A few years of data on what may or may not be a dwindling field is hardly enough for the panic of the politicians and the prophets of the people! Worst of all, here is this pathetic, pompous, half-baked, pickle-faced…..personage…. going to the UN with a possible “solution” to take 5 years and 42 quadrillion credits from all over the earth. I wonder what kind of solution he has.”

———————

Three days later the world went wild over the Great President’s plan to preserve the magnetic field. The world breathed a sigh of relief. They could stop the shifting and dwindling of the magnetic field. It was, after all, a worldwide crisis; one for which every last human on earth was responsible. Not since the popular demise of the doctrine of original sin had the collective whole of humanity felt such a dense burden of individual wrongdoing.

The weight of transgression was oppressive and the grief of the multitude unthinkable. Their radios! In their cars and in their homes, their offices and laptops: their lives! Their lives and their fathers’ lives before them.

Their radio waves were causing such a strong atmospheric disturbance that the whole magnetic field of the entire world was dwindling. It was their fault, theirs and their fathers guilty radio waves that, in the next ten to seventeen million years, would ultimately cost our lovely home planet our beautiful moon. Yes, and without the moon, our eco-structure would implode and we would surely die.

It was possible, the prophets of the people proclaimed, that those first people with radios were ignorant of the depth of ecological depravity they were sinking us into. They are no less to blame, proclaimed the prophets of the people. They perpetrated and perpetuated a perfect calamity upon posterity. The fault is our parents’, though we willingly participated. Until now!

Salvation from the great Unified States[1]! The luminous Great President and his sagacious staff of scientists had discovered a way to redeem the earth’s magnetic field and wipe the slate clean! Five years of penitential toil, the world over, and the wealth of the universe for the redemption of the people, but the whole world wholeheartedly and unanimously agreed. It was a small price to pay. It was the least they could do.

In the 24th year of the luminous Great President, the Unified States presented the world with the Global Magnetic Repositioning System. The unified people’s party of Republicrats praised the perspicacity and unprecedented perseverance of the President and his sagacious staff scientists. The plan, patiently produced by the premier physicists of the President’s panel, was to dig a hole to China. It sounded like a child’s dream, but it was the whole plan. Apparently, if a preposterously prodigious passageway were produced, spanning from Pennsylvania to Peking[2], the problem would correct itself perfectly, permanently and promptly. The dirt was packed off to Holland, Louisiana, and Venice to shore up the seashore and preserve the historical anomalies that had particularly fond memories for the Great President and his counterparts in Europe, Asia and Africa. (No one asked the continent of Australia for input. Doubtless they agreed.)

———————

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… the Texans were deeply concerned. In July of 2036, Texas had unanimously voted to secede from the Union. The Great President was distressed and insulted and consequently decided to allow the secession. And so Texas was no longer a part of the Union, but the President did not give up his sovereignty. Instead, he decreed all Texans outlawed; denied them the right to vote and fenced them in. Since then, Texas had served the Unification as a penal colony and general cesspool.  Over half the military force of the Unified States was stationed at the Texas border to prevent the outlaws from getting out into the law.

After that date, all heretical dissenters were sentenced to life in Texas. New arrivals were summarily baptized by whichever branch of Christianity picked them up first (unless it was redundant).

By the year of Our Lord 2051, or the 24th year of His Luminescence’s reign, Texas was crowded with every imaginable sort of dissenter. The principal dissenters were the Christians, but there were a fair number of old Hippies, anarchists, and various outraged intellectual individualists as well.

Two old gentlemen from the first wave of convicted thinkers sat stewing over their dinner and the problem of the presidential solution. Professor Doctors Billy Kidd and Wilton Lettuce had ignored the roast in the oven while agreeing and counter-agreeing that the whole situation did not ‘withstand the test of reasonableness’.

“It doesn’t withstand the test of reasonableness!”

“That’s not English, Billy, what do you mean?”

“Of course it’s not English. It’s something Candy says when her arithmetic explodes and gives an extraordinarily stupid answer, like 2057 minus1988 equals 969.”

“Your sister is a piece of work.”

“No kaka Sherlock-ah.” Professor Doctor Kidd sniffed the air and opened the oven. Waves of smoke rolled in like a vengeful tide.

“Crappety-crap, we’ve killed dinner.” He choked.

“It was dead to start with!” Professor Lettuce never missed an opportunity to present the facts.

“Well, now it’s very dead. And we will be too, if we can’t stop his Lunacy the President.”

“But we don’t know what’s wrong yet.”

“We’ll figure it out. We’ve got a little while before the Braunschweiger hits the fan. This is a five year plan for the new redemption of man. It looks more impressive than the old Redemption, but it will accomplish nothing.”

“If we’re very, very lucky.”

“Eh?” Professor Kidd poked the beefy brick meditatively, wondering if it were still somewhat edible.

“We’ll be very, very lucky if it accomplishes nothing.”

“Oh.”

They ate at MacDonald’s that night before returning to their lab to begin to commence to start unraveling the knotty problems in the sagacious staff scientists’ singular solution. They didn’t hurry. They were old.

Three years of thinking, experiments and Candy’s mathematical ‘help’ passed quietly in Texas while the digging of the Ecstatics continued in the world outside.  The pride of the President in his well run world was prodigious. His panoptic network of people’s prophets reported that the populace was well pleased with the President’s proactive plan. The Pennsylvanians were two thirds done with their half of the tunnel, and the Chinese were two thirds done with theirs. That ought to mean there was only one third left: in the center of the earth. It’s reasonable. At any rate, the end of the tunnel was in sight, though there was no light yet.

“Eureka!” Professor Doctor Lettuce was galvanized into dance. He jigged around in the glory of discover like a mad Pan. He sang hymns about the end of the world. He hauled Professor Doctor Kidd off his lazy posterior portion and galloped arm in arm around the laboratory without telling Professor Doctor Kidd why they were rejoicing.

“Oh, mine esteemed colleague! Oh, brother in arms! Oh, frabjous day! Oh! CRAP!!!”

Reality hit Professor Doctor Lettuce across the solar plexus (not a good place for an old professor doctor to get hit.)

“Let go of me, you oaf! Explicate!” Professor Doctor Kidd was not as flexible a dancer as his friend and he was inclined to resented this sudden interruption to what he styled ‘his thoughts’. It was more nearly a nap, but why split hairs? Napping was good for thought, and thinking had long been his habit after lunching.

“It’s like this.”

Professor Doctor Kidd eventually got the drift of his friend’s learned discourse. He wanted his afternoon tea. Suddenly, all that seemed trivial and insignificant! Why, if his friend was right, and good old Lettuce was always right, why then…!

“Wilton! Dear friend! If this be true, we must warn the President. He’s the only one who can put an end to this and prevent chaos from ensuing! If only he had nearly as high an IQ as the number of shiny teeth he appears to posses! I hope he’ll understand your high rhetoric.”

“You are always saying that, but I think the President is a very savvy politico who knows exactly what he’s doing, and will listen to pure reason and its fruits.”

“Humph. Well, Watson, we can but try.”

“Are you quoting Sherlock Holmes again?”

“Obviously. Is your name Watson?”

———————

“Excuse me, your Luminosity, there is an urgent letter from Texas just arrived by pigeon.”

“Pigeon? That’s nonsense! Stop wasting my valuable time, Sebastian, can’t you see I’m preoccupied?”

“Yes, Sir, nevertheless, Sir, there is a letter, Sir, brought in installments, Sir, by carrier pigeon, Sir, and it does seem rather important, Sir, if you’ll excuse me, Sir.”

“Don’t grovel. Bring me the fragments and leave me to my preoccupations.”

“Yes, Sir, sorry, Sir, at once, Sir.”

“Oh, and Sebastian, I’ll probably need some tape while you’re at it. Sebastian? Sebastian? Oh, curse the idiot! He’s never where he should be!”

“Sir?” the accursed was at his side.

“Gah!!!!” The President had not known.

“Sir, if you will wait a moment, your staff of taping professionals will do that tiresome task for you, Sir.”

“Fine. Now get out!”

“Sir.”

———————

A few hours passed in Washington D.C. and suddenly a great peal of laughter resounded from the Conical Office[3]. It echoed off the improbable walls and wafted into the street. A stray passer-by wondered if the Great One had lost his mind. Shortly thereafter, the stray found himself in Texas, very wet indeed; having been dumped too near the full immersion Baptists and the conveniently located Gulf.

“Sebastian!”

“Sir?” from the omnipresent idiot.

“Gah!!!!” Sebastian’s proclivity for catlike movement disconcerted the Great President. He was a puppy person.

“I have a short message for the pigeons. Take it down, cut it up, attach it to the pigeons, and send it to these Professor Doctors of Hilarity.”

———————

The pigeons were the special pride of Candy Bahr, Professor Doctor Kidd’s elder sister. Her arithmetic was shaky but her house was clean, and that is more than could be said of her brother or his friend. The pigeons came back to her one Thursday afternoon, and she rejoiced to see her pretty poultry return.  At least for a little while the earth was normal, and Candy was a smiley person who looked for the bright, happy things everywhere.  She sang extracts of ironic arias to the little birdies while she fed them and untied the strips of paper from their scrawny ankles. The birdies cooed. Abruptly, she turned from the birds and began to unravel and tape together the Great President’s luminescent letter.

“Dear Professor Doctors Kidd and Lettuce,”

“You are unmitigated asses, both of you.”

“Your suspicions are those of lunatics and I will”

“not regard them further. I must say, however, th”

“at your concern seems genuine and though it is”

“unnecessary, it afforded me a pleasant afternoon,”

“so thank you, gentlemen and goodbye.”

“His Luminescence the Great President”

“of the Unified and Glorious States of”

“America”

Candy sighed. Her brother would be so very full of himself now. He’d run around and say ‘I told you so — the President has no brain’. He’d probably dredge up that old line about IQ and teeth. Hopefully he’d forget that he once equated the title “Luminescence” with the shiny-ness of the leader’s teeth.

Professor Doctor Wilton Lettuce came in from feeding the rabbits. Glancing at the table, he divined the problem.

“So, Candy, Billy was right.”

“Sure thing, old buddy old pal.” Candy shook her head and continued.

“Do you think it was a bad idea to send it by pigeon? Did that make it worse? I mean, would he have been more likely to take us seriously without the poultry motif?”

“Slow down, Candy. No, I don’t think he’d have taken us more seriously. I think he’d never have seen the warning at all. You know the ramifications of this plan of his. We had to try.”

“Actually Wilton, I have no idea what the ramifications are. You told the President in clear English, but you two old dodgers always try to tell me scientifically. What in tarnation ARE the ramifications?”

“Oh dear, Candy, sit down while you can.”

“What?!”

“In plain simple boring English,”

“English is not boring, Wilton. Be polite.”

“Yes. Anyway, without its lovely mathematic proof, the trouble is that this hole through the center of the earth will erase the surface gravity of the earth.”

“You’re joking!”

“No, I’m not. It’s true. Billy and I do not know if the trauma will be permanent, but there is no doubt that gravity will cease to exist at least for a while as soon as the Pennsylvanians and the Chinese meet each other at the center of the Earth.”

“Well, the Texans will listen to us. We still have a little while to strap ourselves down.”

“Well, straps are good, but a gravity machine would be better.”

“Got one lying around?”

“Goodness, Candy, don’t be silly. We’ll invent one.”

“You’ll need help. I’ll call Billy.”

———————

Far away, around the world, the digging and delving continued. People planned parties and invited their local prophets and Republicrat representatives. The President prepared his panegyric and the staff scientists were serenaded with songs of success. The day of salvation from the terrors of dwindling magnetism was at hand. The sweat of man’s brow would save mankind from the hell of the moonless apocalypse.  As the final year of work approached, more and more people proceeded to Pennsylvania to proffer their pennies and prowess to speed the progress of the plan of salvation from their own self-inflicted terror. Mass hysteria was replaced by mass pride in a job well done and few, if any good citizens of the Unified States of America were conscious of any doubt at all. The few who entertained such silly thoughts were sent to Texas and dunked. (The continent of Australia remained confused and hoped for the best.)

Happily blind, humanity sped toward destruction in pursuit of redemption.

———————

The whole world scampered with activity. The Texans invented straps, buckles and clamps while Professor Doctors Kidd and Lettuce created a gravity machine. The world dug furiously towards its doom. Australia shrugged her shoulders. Time passed. Two years, one year, and then the day dawned when God looked down on Earth and saw right through her, as through a cored apple. Heaven wept, for Professor Doctor Lettuce’s math, as always, was correct.

———————

“My fellow Americans! On this peculiarly hallowed day, we have achieved our goal! We, yes we, have overcome our past. We, we alone, have transcended our wrongdoing. We have erased the past and may embrace the future. The effect of the irresponsible radio waves is eradicated. We have created the remission of the past’s transmissions, if you will permit me to express myself so. And now, citizens of the world, in just 13 seconds the final break will be made and we shall know ourselves to be the conquerors of our world and even of our very nature!

Citizens of the world, I give you redemptiooooooooooooon!!!!!!!!!!”

———————

His Luminescence and all his fellow Americans, people’s prophets and sagacious staff scientists flew into the air, through the air, past the air, beyond the air, and met the Redeemer.

———————

“For goodness sake, Billy, turn the thingummy-widget on already!”

“Candy, if it’s on before gravity stops, there will be double gravity and that would be bad.”

“Understatement, Billy.”

“Yes, Wilton, and we could tell her exactly what would happen, but then she would get mad at us.”

“Fair enooooough!!! Hit the red button already!!!!!”

The Texans were strapped down and bolted in. Professor Doctor Billy Kidd whacked the red button on the new gravity machine one second after he probably should have, but they stayed on Earth until it was time to go Home to their Redeemer.

Australia held onto whatever it could find. Some folks lived long enough to invent gravity machines with one hand while flying around upside down. By and large, those were the Australian Christians, the old Hippies, and various outraged intellectual individualists.

———————

The damage seems to be permanent. The surface of the world continues without gravity of its own. The gravity machine business is booming and some parts of the world are being colonized again. We cannot reverse the process. They buried all the dirt under water in Louisiana and Venice and Holland. Until the end of time we will have to deal with the disaster of a human solution for the world. But, the magnetic field is stable. It appears the moon will be with us until the end of Time.

.

.

.

.

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Postscript: Names slightly modified to produce the greatest comic effect. Also, I recognize my debt to a handful of great writers and comedians. My use of their thoughts is a tribute and not intended to damage, but rather bolster their well deserved reputations. This list is short but not included. If anyone wants to see it, write, and I’ll gladly provide the credits.

[2] “The Chinese reverted to the old Anglicized spelling to honor the Great President in the 12^th year of his light.” SourceofallKnowledge.gov

[3] Naturally there was some amount of remodeling done at the time of the Great President’s fourth inauguration.

SourceofallKnowledge.gov

is proud to present the 2009

Leo Tolstoy Award

to

W.A. Heller

Lawton, OK

Third Place

(Category:  19 and up)

Bio:

Born in the Bronx, Wallace grew up in more places than he cares to recall. In the late 70s, he attended high school in Redondo Beach and spent the next decade on loading docks and in print shops, hoofing it around Chicago hawking typesetting and graphic design, while pursuing more than his share of dreams that didn’t pan out. In the 90s, he attended the City Colleges of Chicago and National-Louis University, then medical school in the Caribbean. While living in the West Indies, Wallace discovered something in this world but not of this world—the Christian faith as practiced in the traditions of the Church of the Province of the West Indies. As the first decade of the new century unfolded, he finished residency at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and relocated to the heartland. A practicing physician since 2002, Wallace aspires to attend seminary in the Anglican tradition. Nearly 50, Wallace has lived lots of places, seen lots of things, and met lots of people, all of which inform his observations and perspective.

His creative projects appear at www.lotcmedia.com.

To contact W. A. Heller you may seek his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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Angel’s Mercy

by W. A. Heller

The sweat clung to Christy’s back as she pushed the stroller against the curb and on to the sidewalk.  She and Angel were in a hurry; today was the day the man in the store said to call about the job.  They had gotten up early, but it made no difference.  The air outside their first floor apartment was as thick and still as the air inside.  The pavement they just crossed felt sticky and soft.  Before they left, Christy went through every pocket in every pair of jeans and the bottom of her purse–even her coat in the closet–but she was short on solid quarters.  Thank God her neighbor Teena could spare a few–Teena always came through, at least she always did what she could.  Christy put the quarters into a little sack and wrapped it tightly with a rubber band.  She slid the sack into the front pocket of her shorts where it made an uncomfortable lump, but she didn’t care.  All that mattered was that she had enough to use the pay phone and wash Angel’s clothes; he was on his last clean tee shirt.  He grew out of things so quickly now.  “We’ll go to the Thrift Shop next time mama gets her check,” she told Angel.  She called the second hand her “unique boutique”.  Most everything she owned came from there–clothes and toys especially.  They sold furniture too, but she had no way to carry that home.

Angel was too big for the stroller, but Christy couldn’t tug him along and carry the laundry at the same time.  She squeezed him into the seat and let him hold the bottle of detergent on his lap.  Pillowcases made good laundry bags she discovered; they didn’t tear like the plastic bags the stores gave out, and you could put one in the basket underneath the stroller’s seat and another behind the seat where there was space to store stuff.  You could even tie one to the bar that ran between the handles of the stroller.  Angel giggled and smiled and waved at the trucks that rumbled past.  He liked trucks more than anything–he told his mama that he was going to buy her a truck when he was big, so they didn’t have to walk everywhere.  To tell the truth, the trucks scared Christy.  A woman and her kids got hit in the crosswalk a few months ago.  The paper said a church was asking for donations to help the family send the bodies back to Mexico.

Highland Avenue was the main drag on this end of town; it even had a bus that passed every hour on the hour.  Eight blocks west stood a strip mall at the intersection of Route 21, the highway that led south, past the cement plant and out to Combi-brands where they made bacon and hot dogs.  A girl who worked there told Christy “you come home at night with bits of meat and grease in your hair.”  “A job was a job,” Christy thought.  “Besides,” she had heard, “if you worked there, you could take stuff home from time to time.”  Lever Brothers had a plant on this side of town as well.  If the wind was right, you could smell it a mile away.

Duds-N-Suds was the nearest laundromat to the Windmere Village apartments where she and Angel lived.  The apartments had a laundry room, but she avoided it–the machines were mostly broken, and Teena had been robbed there.  Teena said they shoved her around too like they wanted more than just the money.  She said they laughed when she started crying and they saw how scared she was.  Eight blocks turned into six, then four.  She made a game out of the obstacles that cluttered the sidewalk–telephone poles, fire hydrants, newspaper boxes, signposts.  She weaved around them like a police car on a chase; Angel said, “faster mama, faster” as he pretended to steer.  This side of town didn’t have those little dips in the curb at the cross streets, so every corner meant the same routine–look out for traffic, get the stroller off the curb without tipping over, cross the street, get the stroller on the next curb without tipping over, and keep going.  Christy hadn’t forgotten the time she was crossing the street when Angel was little.  It was rush hour and had started raining.  The bottom fell out of a shopping bag.  The groceries fell in a heap at her feet; cans rolled in all directions.  She tried to hold on to her son and pick it all up at the same time, but when the light turned, the traffic started coming.  They just drove right around her, laughing and honking and calling her names.  “Nobody ever gives a damn,” she concluded.  “Nobody gives you a break.”

Halfway there, she stopped to catch her breath.  Angel was squirming in his seat.  She really wanted this job; she could pay Teena to watch Angel.  They’d done that before, and it worked.  Teena had three of her own at home and never went anywhere.  She started pushing the stroller again.  She passed a liquor store, then “Break Out Now Bail Bonds–Open 24 Hours”, then “XXX Books and Novelties.”  She hated walking past that–it made her skin crawl.  Paco’s Tacos came next.  That’s where she met Angel’s dad.  It seemed so long ago–Angel was nearly four now.  She had stopped going to school the summer before she got pregnant and was just hanging out.  So much had changed so quickly.  Still, she didn’t feel like giving up.  Angel was the best thing that ever happened to her, and she knew it.  For once she had somebody who really loved her.

She crossed a parking lot littered with bits of broken glass that crackled and crunched under her feet.  Someone had smashed a quart bottle, maybe two.  “Why did people have to be so crazy?”  Someone else had dumped the ashtray from a car right there on the ground.  Crumpled paper bags sat by the curb and flattened empty cigarette packs dotted the asphalt.  The smell of sour milk came from behind the Mini Mart where the plastic crates were piled high next to the back door and the dumpster overflowed.  The occasional wad of fresh chewing gum competed with a multitude of blotches that stained the sidewalk separating the parking spaces from the storefronts.  A piece of cardboard from a package of Ding-Dongs attracted a colony of ants; a half finished Slurpee lay on its side beneath a sign that read “Put Litter In Its Place.”  Variety King was vacant now, but the kiddie ride remained outside the door.  Rocket-To-The-Moon it was called.  The last time they tried, it took the quarters but wouldn’t move.  Angel had started crying, but there was nothing she could do.  Now, it looked like someone had vandalized the coin box and cut the cord.  Angel said nothing as they walked past.

The front doors to the coin laundry were open wide, one held in place against the wall by a garbage can, the other by an ashtray on a stand.  “Shoot, no AC,” she said.  Angel looked up.  “Mama… milky, milky.”  He giggled and rubbed his belly.  Through the large windows she saw orange and yellow plastic chairs–those molded kind that were bolted together in a row.  She could see Mrs. Flores sitting on a chair in the back near the TV.  The door to the alley was open, but an iron gate with three huge padlocks prevented anyone from getting in.  You had to ask Mrs. Flores for the key to the bathroom; if she didn’t know you, she pretended not to understand English.  Mrs. Flores made sure no one stole anything, at least not while she was there.  She always treated Christy nicely–called her “mi hija”–and made a fuss over Angel.  “Papacito, ven con tu abuela,” she said.  Angel never acted up around Mrs. Flores.  He had known her forever.

Recessed into the walls, Loadstar dryers lined both sides of the store; most were missing the knob at the end of the lever that set the heat.  Back to back, two rows of yellow Speed Queen washers ran along the middle.  A few avocado-colored ones sat in a corner beneath the sign ”WORK CLOTHES ONLY”.  The change machine had duct tape covering the slot for dollar bills and “out of order” scrawled in black marker across the front.  From the looks of it, someone had tried to jimmy it open one time too many.  The ceiling had seen better days; water stains and warped panels surrounded light fixtures that hummed and flickered.  The tiles on the floor were worn and mismatched; a faded path led down each of the aisles and back to the starting point.  Tired looking signs appeared in several places.  “NO DYEING.”  “DO NOT SIT ON TABLES.”  “NO RUBBER OR PLASTIC ITEMS IN DRYERS.”  “DO NOT LEAVE CHILDREN UNATTENDED.”  Lint collected in corners and along the baseboard, even in the cracks in the paneling.  An old vending machine–the kind with the knobs that pull to release the product–was turned against the wall.  The air smelled like cigarettes and “Fresh Breeze” laundry detergent.  Chairs were sticky.  Linoleum peeled from the sides of the tables; cigarette burns marred the edges.  Christy learned the hard way–wipe the table before you set anything on it.  Someone drew a picture in the dust on the counter; someone else wrote his name.  Flies circled a half-full pail of empty cans.  Printed announcements and handwritten messages covered each other on the bulletin board.  “Work From Home–No Experience Necessary.”  ”Make $$Money$$ In Your Spare Time.”   “Furniture for sale.”  “Babysitting.”  In large letters a sign above the bulletin board read, “Visit our other locations!  Suds-ville.  Laundry Town.”  That sign cracked Christy up.  “If they’re anything like this, why bother?”

In one corner, an oscillating fan on a pole blew hot humid air across the room, competing with the noise from the traffic outside and the washers and dryers in use.  In the other corner, the TV blared.  “¡Ahorre, ahorre, ahorre!  South Blvd Flea Market.  A precios bajos–la mejor calidad. Abierto sábado y domingo. Venga a South Blvd Flea Market donde usted encontrará lo que más necesita.  Ropa nueva y usada, botas y botines, herramienta, discos de sus grupos favoritos, cosas de interés para toda la familia, y mucho, mucho mas.  South Blvd Flea Market–donde su dinero alcanzará!” Christy busied herself unloading the dirty laundry into two machines near the back of the store in sight of Mrs. Flores.  She felt safer that way. Angel liked to push the stroller around; only when mom gave him a look did he settle down or find something else to do.  He used to like it when she put him in one of the laundry carts and pushed him around the store, but lately he had outgrown that; he wanted to be the one doing all the pushing.   She was afraid he would wander outside; he did that once and made it down to the Rocket ride before she caught up to him.  He was becoming more independent, and that scared her.  He was supposed to go to preschool in the fall.  Just the thought of that made Christy feel uncertain and lonely.

The washers loaded and running, Christy started thinking about what she was going to say when she called about the job.  Those kinds of things made her nervous, and she was afraid she would sound stupid or silly.  She checked the number of quarters remaining.  Just enough to make a call and dry the clothes.  There won’t be any treats today.  There wasn’t enough for that.

Christy figured it would be better that Mrs. Flores watched Angel for a moment than to take him along while she used the phone.  Sometimes Mrs. Flores would let him pretend to sweep the floor.  She usually had something to play with in the pockets of her smock, sometimes even a sucker or some of that Mexican candy that was so sweet it made your teeth hurt.  Mrs. Flores was one of the few people Christy trusted.  Another was Teena.  Besides that there was a gym teacher back in junior high who had really been good to her, who listened and made her see that she could accomplish things if she tried, but that was years ago.  Sometimes she wished Mrs. Flores were her mom.

The pay phone in the laundry had been removed ages ago; the paint underneath was a different color.  There was a perfect outline of a phone around a hole in the wall with wires sticking out.  Christy knew there was a phone at the Mini-Mart and another across the street where the McCrory used to be.  “They can’t both be jammed or broken, can they?”  Christy had worked at the McCrory until they folded.  The job was a lifesaver.  Mom threw her out when she found out Christy was pregnant and found out who the father was.  Christy moved in with Angel’s dad, but that didn’t work.  The manager at the McCrory eventually made her a cashier, but she preferred working in the basement where they had the artificial flowers and the toys, the fish and canaries and parakeets.  She knew there was no going back, but if there was, that was the job she would like to have most.  It was quiet and peaceful and fun.

Christy led Angel over to Mrs. Flores.  “Be good, Little Man,” she told him.  “Do everything she tells you while mama goes and uses the phone.”  Angel found a toy truck and started playing with it, rolling it across the floor, making stops to pick up cargo and get gas.  “Vroom,” the truck rolled across the floor.  “Vroom, vroom,” it made a wide arc and collided with the wall.  “Vroom, vroom, vroom,” he gunned the engine and let it fly.  It disappeared down the aisle and out of sight.

Angel peered around the last washer in the row.  He had the aisle to himself except for a fat lady wearing slippers and a housedress who was sitting by the window, smoking and reading a magazine.  The sound of rushing water started and stopped like when mama filled the tub at home, and it was time for a bath.  Machines whirred and hummed; one shook back and forth violently as if trying to rid itself of something that had snuck up and grabbed it from behind.  Angel spied where the toy truck had rolled.  It was resting near the foot of the oscillating fan.  The pole that held the fan wobbled and shook as the machine atop it turned, the blades colliding with the wire housing and emitting a shrill rasp of metal on metal as the mechanism reached the end of each arc.  Angel liked things that moved and made noise.  The fan was taller than Angel and seemed to grow as he approached it; the machine behaved as if it had a will of its own.  Suddenly, Angel heard something that caused him to stop what he was doing.  Someone, somewhere told Angel “Don’t touch that” and Angel obeyed.  Angel wasn’t sure if he heard it in his head or in his heart.  He hadn’t heard this voice before, or, if he had, it hadn’t been in ages.  It was a voice he vaguely remembered if he remembered it at all, a voice from before Angel entered the world of things to touch or taste or pick up and carry home, a voice from before there was an Angel, yet he found it familiar and reassuring and compelling all the same.  “Come here.”  The voice from nowhere returned, neither loud nor angry nor impatient.  Just insistent.  He retrieved his truck and retreated down the aisle, driving his truck along the tops of the washers as he went.

Halfway down the aisle, he stopped, truck in hand, beside the obsolete vending machine facing the wall.  Cobwebs stretched from one foot to the other.  He heard the sound of metal creaking and scraping followed by several thumps and the crackle of something crisp.  “Take, eat,” the voice intoned.  Curious, he reached into the space between the front of the machine and the wall it faced and found the tray near the bottom.  In it was a bag of cheese puffs, Angel’s favorite.  The bag was open; he squealed with delight.  An old saw written in a dusty book gained new meaning.  “He rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.  Men ate the bread of angels, he sent them all the food they could eat.”

Angel carried the truck in one hand and the snack in the other and climbed up on a plastic chair.  He feasted, and his belly was filled.  The empty bag fell to the floor behind him.  On the counter within reach, a little cardboard stand displayed church tracts printed on pastel shades of paper.  Pink.  Blue.  Yellow.  Green.  More curious than contrary, Angel grabbed a handful just as his mom reappeared, a look of frustration on her face and a tone of discouragement in her voice.  “Put those back.  How many times…” Christy’s voice trailed off.  The titles caught her attention as she took them from his hands.  “Where Will You Spend Eternity?”  “Probably right here,” she chuckled.  “A Love Like No Other.”  “Sounds like one of those Harlequin’s.”  The Thrift Shop had boxes and boxes of them, ten cents each, mostly with the covers torn off.  She liked to read them for fun.  Life, she realized, wasn’t really like that.  Not even close.  “God Wants You To Stay Married.”  “What a joke!  You have to get married first for that to even be a possibility.”  “In Case You Have An Appointment To Keep.”  She carefully put the tracts back in the box, all but that last one.  That one she folded and put in her pocket.

Christy was glad that Angel seemed content and hadn’t gotten into trouble while she was gone.  Mrs. Flores took good care of him.  Angel had his moments, and it would be lying if she said that she didn’t get overwhelmed.  She had learned a lot in the last four years.  She was glad he was here.  She wouldn’t have it any other way.  She wouldn’t change that for the world.

The orange powder on his face and fingers puzzled her though.  Mrs. Flores must have given him something.  For that she was grateful, but she felt let down about something else.  The man in the store wasn’t in today like he said he would be; they told her to call back another day.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after.  Nobody could say for sure.  Just call back another day.  Another day like today.  Every day was turning into a day like today.  Different in little ways but not by very much.  What was left of the quarters Christy used for the dryers; she folded the laundry when it was done and neatly filled the pillowcases.  With a clean washcloth, she wiped Angel’s fingers and mouth.  She squeezed Angel back into his seat and loaded the stroller.  She looked back at Mrs. Flores to wave good-bye and thank her for taking care of Angel, but Mrs. Flores was no longer there, and the TV was strangely silent.  Christy shrugged her shoulders and started out the door.  She had her Angel, and it was going to be a long walk home.

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