by Arthur O'KEEFE

How do I ex­press this? 

The thought comes word­less­ly to Bruno as he sits fac­ing the sky be­yond the boxy, util­i­tar­i­an cruise ship docked at Os­an­bashi Pier. The clouds have caught him again.

He shifts his gaze to the bay it­self as the mo­tion of a wa­ter taxi catch­es his eye. Far­ther out, a con­tain­er ship makes its way to­ward the open sea.

The Ju­ly sun is blaz­ing and mer­ci­less, but Shizu­ka found them two chairs un­der a canopy tent. They are seat­ed in the cor­ner of a Mex­i­co-themed arrange­ment of food stands, set be­tween two brick ware­hous­es built be­fore the First World War which now serve as a com­mer­cial com­plex. Tex-Mex fare and var­i­ous drinks are on offer. 

Bruno’s Dos Eq­uis Am­bar is get­ting tepid, so he drains it and thinks about what to get next, ig­nor­ing the cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance caused by his slow­ly ex­pand­ing bel­ly and de­clin­ing liv­er function. 

Shizu­ka smiles at him, and he smiles back and re­mem­bers that he needs to stay sober enough to get her home safe­ly. In the twi­light be­tween youth and mid­dle age, she is six­teen years his ju­nior and less prone to hang­overs, though she can’t hold her booze well. He leans over and kiss­es her.

He gets up to buy an­oth­er Dos Eq­uis, then re­turns to his chair and looks again at the sky.

Up­on the hori­zon lay bil­low­ing clouds of white and grey, ex­pand­ing im­per­cep­ti­bly against the un­bro­ken blue ex­panse, mov­ing him in ways ar­cane and in­ex­press­ible by verse, sketch, or paint­ing. A beau­ty his soul holds cap­tive and yet longs for. 

“I wish I could paint it,” he says to her, eyes still fixed on the clouds.

“You could write it.” 

“Yeah, maybe.”

“You can.”

He takes a swig of beer and says, “OK. Thanks for find­ing these chairs.” 

Filed under Fiction on January 3rd, 2025

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Care to Share?

by Alex DERMODY

With his bare hands, my big broth­er Devin can crush a lump of coal in­to a PlaySta­tion 5. Pres­sure makes di­a­monds, sure. But for Devin, pres­sure makes video games. An Xbox 360. The new Call of Du­ty. A Nin­ten­do Switch. Every­one has a gift. And, over the years, Devin’s gift has saved me about twen­ty thou­sand dol­lars (maybe more). So you can see why I re­act­ed the way I did that night in his den. My old­er broth­er faced a roar­ing fire with wor­ried eyes, swirling a glass of red with his mag­ic left hand. 

Devin said, “I mean it, I’m done. No more crush­ing coal in­to video games.” 

Every hol­i­day I pre­pare for this mo­ment, but the shock still made me dizzy. It was the week be­fore Christ­mas, and I need­ed games and sys­tems for my five children!

“Let’s talk about it,” I said. 

“No. All you do is talk. Not this time. Sony, Nin­ten­do, Mi­crosoft — I’ve robbed them for decades. It isn’t right!” 

Like I said, every­one has a gift. Mine kicked in­to gear. “Rob­bing Nin­ten­do? Dev, bud­dy. They’re worth bil­lions! Crush­ing some coal so your nieces and nephews have a good Christ­mas, that’s not hurt­ing Mario and Luigi.” 

Devin sipped his wine dis­mis­sive­ly. “Lis­ten up, id­iot. This is about moral­i­ty. Right and wrong. We on­ly get one shot at this thing called life.” 

My big broth­er, al­ways so dra­mat­ic. “You know the sto­ry of Robin Hood?” 

Devin’s fore­head wrin­kled. “Steal from the rich, give to the poor. Hm­mm. I nev­er con­sid­ered the Robin Hood an­gle. You’re right. There are dif­fer­ent de­grees of crime.” 

“Lit­er­al­ly. Felonies through in­frac­tions. Plus, these cor­po­ra­tions don’t care about the cus­tomer.”

The fire popped in the fire­place. “Maybe. But in this case, the steal­ing isn’t jus­ti­fied. If I was turn­ing coal in­to, say, loaves of bread for the hun­gry, things might be different.” 

“Not nec­es­sar­i­ly. Su­per­heroes smash up en­tire cities, small busi­ness­es and all. They don’t let mil­lions in prop­er­ty dam­ages stop them. They choose the greater good.” 

“The greater good… you’re say­ing that, in­stead of fo­cus­ing on the neg­a­tive as­pects of my crimes, I should fo­cus on how hap­py I’m mak­ing your kids?” 

“Par­tial­ly, bro. Yeah. Hap­pi­ness, but not for the sake of sim­ple re­tail ther­a­py. Kids now-adays, they’re so mean about video games. If you don’t have the lat­est and great­est, you’re ba­si­cal­ly an out­cast. Give your nieces and nephews the gift of so­cial rel­e­van­cy this Christmas.” 

Devin let out a laugh. “You think I’m stu­pid. You once again saved the shop­ping un­til last minute. Is every­thing sold out? Ei­ther that or you’re be­ing cheap.” 

“Sure, Dev. If you must know, I’m a lit­tle late with the shop­ping. And, yeah, things aren’t so great for me down at work.” I pre­tend­ed to lose pa­tience, stomp­ing my snow boot on his shag car­pet. “But, come on! Help­ing my kids, sav­ing me mon­ey. Those are what­ev­er. The re­al rea­son you need to do this is be­cause you can’t waste your gift.” 

“That’s not fair.” 

“Not fair. No one else in hu­man his­to­ry can crush coal in­to a Sega Gen­e­sis. Every morn­ing I wake up wish­ing I could turn a black rock in­to a Game Boy Ad­vance. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, wish­ing for gifts doesn’t work.” 

“Just be­cause I can do some­thing, that doesn’t mean I have to.” 

“Is that what you would tell the cre­ator of the uni­verse? That even though they gave you a gift, it shouldn’t be shared?” I knew Devin be­lieved some­one or some­thing cre­at­ed the uni­verse. And I used it against him. 

Devin hes­i­tat­ed. “You mean… why would the cre­ator of the uni­verse give me this abil­i­ty, if they didn’t want me to use it?” 

“Ex­act­ly.” 

Devin sipped wine, think­ing out loud: “What­ev­er made me, it wasn’t an ac­ci­dent. There­fore my gift wasn’t an ac­ci­dent. In­ter­est­ing. An­oth­er un­con­sid­ered an­gle.” My broth­er thought it through some more, blink­ing at the blaz­ing fire. “You’re right. Bu —”

I hopped out of the leather re­clin­er. I gave my big broth­er a hug. “You’re think­ing clear­ly again, you gor­geous mo­ron. Of course we can’t waste our gifts. Now, I need five sys­tems. A PlaySta —” 

“Hang on. You’re right. But even though the cre­ator of the uni­verse made me this way, I see it as a test. They’re test­ing how I’ll use the gift. They’re study­ing my re­sponse. No, broth­er. My coal-crush­ing-video-game days are done. You can tell the kid­dos sor­ry, but their uncle’s retired.” 

We were made the way we were made for a rea­son. Be thank­ful for that. I know I am. The fork in the road forced me left, and my gift was ready for it. Had been for years. 

“Fine, Dev,” I said, a wide smile grac­ing my face. “You win. You’re the boss. Let’s drop this talk of coal crush­ing and video games.” I reached in my bag, pro­duc­ing two bot­tles of red wine. “I bought a Bor­deaux and a Pinot. Which first?” 

“Now there’s the lit­tle broth­er I know and love! Pinot, of course.” 

I poured the first few glass­es, and the rest was his­to­ry. I didn’t suc­ceed in per­suad­ing Devin to crush coal in­to video games. I did, how­ev­er, suc­ceed in per­suad­ing him to get ripped. There’s al­ways a way for­ward with my gift. And when Devin passed out in his re­clin­er from too much booze, I trudged out­side through two feet of snow to my truck for a bag of coal. Once back in­side the den, I opened my brother’s hand. I placed the black rock in his palm.“It’s im­por­tant we don’t waste our gifts,” I said, now con­trol­ling both Devin’s hands. The last step was in front of me. I shout­ed, “Nin­ten­do Switch!” And brought my brother’s palms to­geth­er. A loud POP pierced the cozy room.

Filed under Fiction on December 20th, 2024

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Care to Share?

by Mark JACOBS

Jones is walk­ing. All morn­ing and then across the af­ter­noon he walks as if he has a des­ti­na­tion. He is ex­plor­ing what peo­ple call the fed­er­al canyons of Wash­ing­ton, D.C. In mel­low Oc­to­ber sun­shine he tra­vers­es block af­ter gray stone block of mon­u­men­tal of­fice build­ings where gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees go about their busi­ness. Jones has no clue about that busi­ness, which vague­ly both­ers him. Un­til yes­ter­day he was in the first se­mes­ter of his sopho­more year at George Ma­son Uni­ver­si­ty. That’s over now.

He can’t get a sen­tence out of his head. An in­ef­fa­ble sad­ness pierced the young man’s heart. He has no idea where the sen­tence came from, or why it lingers.

At the mid-point of the af­ter­noon, the day’s warmest hour, he comes to an al­ley on a num­bered street in South West. There aren’t many back­streets in this part of the city. He goes down it.

At the back end of the al­ley is a green Dump­ster. Next to the Dump­ster, out of view of passers­by on the street, a large, heav­i­ly built woman sits on a camp chair. The legs of the chair are so low that her own legs must ex­tend out in front of her to find ease. She wears jeans and a blouse with up­side-down flow­ers, un­der an Army sur­plus jack­et on one sleeve of which a pink heart is em­broi­dered. Her beefy face is a storm cloud. The brow is fur­rowed, her gray hair wild.  Her clear blue eyes col­lect the light­ning of her mind’s storm.

Next to the woman is a pile of be­long­ings in­clud­ing a sleep­ing bag rolled tight with a bungee cord. There is al­so an old blue suit­case with stick­ers on the sides an­nounc­ing ex­ot­ic des­ti­na­tions like Can­cún and Sin­ga­pore and Rio de Janeiro. There is a stack of DVDs, a Gideon’s Bible, a com­pli­cat­ed toothbrush.

“What are you look­ing at?”

“Sor­ry.”

You’d think Jones would have the ad­van­tage, stand­ing over the woman in her low chair, but the op­po­site is true. She is in con­trol and snorts at his apology.

“Think you’re so god­damn high and mighty, don’t you?”

“No. I don’t think that.”

“You might be part of the ma­chine, but you’re just a lit­tle tiny cog in a mi­nor wheel.”

“What ma­chine?”

“Don’t give me no lip, col­lege boy.”

“I’m not a col­lege boy.”

“Sure you are.”

“I was, but I quit.”

The in­for­ma­tion does not ap­pear to change her opin­ion of him. He wish­es she would ask him why he quit. That might help him fig­ure it out.

He asks her again, “What machine?”

“The ex­ploita­tion com­plex. Use any ad­jec­tive you like. Mil­i­tary, in­dus­tri­al, gov­ern­men­tal, tech­no­log­i­cal, they’re all part of it. It gets big­ger every year, and the space for free­dom shrinks.”

“I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.”

An­oth­er snort, in­di­cat­ing he is be­neath con­tempt. He stands there wish­ing he knew what the right ques­tion to ask is un­til he feels some­thing hard and sharp in the mid­dle of his back. He pulls away, swings around fast to see a man as small as the woman is huge. The man is hold­ing a knife. Jones thinks it’s a switch­blade. He has a mousey look, as though he has been told to stand in a cor­ner one too many times. His brown­ish hair is wispy, his skin looks un­healthy, his ex­pres­sion has a kind of de­ter­mi­na­tion in it as though he’s nerv­ing him­self up to do some­thing scary. Like the woman, he wears an old Army jack­et. His has no em­broi­dered flower.

“Put the knife away,” the woman or­ders him.

He in­stant­ly obeys, grin­ning like a boy.

“This one don’t mean no harm, Reg­gie, he’s just a col­lege boy lost his way. What’s your name, col­lege boy?”

“Jones. What’s yours?”

“See how lip­py he is?”

Jones learns that her names is Do­lores. She likes to talk and has a lot to say. He’s a good lis­ten­er, or wants to be. Reg­gie pulls up his own camp chair and sits next to Do­lores, an in­signif­i­cant moon in her grand so­lar orbit.

It’s weird, stand­ing while they both sit, but Jones feels he has some­thing to learn. Why else quit school in the mid­dle of a se­mes­ter? Apart from Do­lores and Reg­gie, he has told no one. He’ll tell his fam­i­ly, he’ll have to at some point. Right now how­ev­er he can’t get past the plea­sur­able sen­sa­tion of dri­ving for­ward out of ignorance.

“Jones here claims he quit col­lege,” Do­lores tells Reggie.

Reggie’s turn to snort, but it’s a spindly im­i­ta­tion of his friend’s disdain.

“I had him,” he says. His high voice is squeaky. “I snuck up on him good. Like a pro­fes­sion­al. If I want­ed I’d a cut him.”

Do­lores ad­mits it grudg­ing­ly. That’s one way, Jones re­al­izes, she main­tains her pow­er over the man. He craves her ap­proval. This is bet­ter than any psych course he could have signed up for.

“This used to be a re­pub­lic of free in­di­vid­u­als,” Do­lores in­forms Jones, start­ing up out of nowhere. “Rare in the an­nals of hu­man history.”

“It’s not any more?”

“Hah! The big com­pa­nies, they bought it when we weren’t look­ing, then they sold it for parts.”

“Where are you from, Dolores?”

The ques­tion takes her aback.

“Why? You with the government?”

“No, I just would like to know is all.”

“I was raised in a cab­bage patch.”

This brings on a snig­ger from Reg­gie, who ad­mires her pow­er of in­ven­tion. Paw­ing through their stuff he comes up with a choco­late bar, which he un­wraps and bites with sur­pris­ing bru­tal­i­ty. He is the kind of man who is al­ways try­ing to prove him­self and nev­er succeeding.

“The cab­bage patch to which I re­fer was sit­u­at­ed on a farm in one of the New Eng­land states. I won’t go any fur­ther than that, thank you very much. They took the farm, didn’t they? The sons a bitch­es. They gave my moth­er a drug made her go crazy. Seeped right in­to her san­i­ty, which was pre­car­i­ous at the best of times. My dad had to stand there and watch his best beloved roll down­hill to obliv­ion. Any­body tells you a man can’t die from a bro­ken heart, that per­son nev­er met my fa­ther. Kelvin was his name, like the ther­mome­ter.” She stops to study Jones’s face. “We live in a so­ci­ety that lacks compassion.”

“I know that.”

He says it hop­ing to get on a wave­length with her; with both of them. But the at­tempt back­fires. With ze­ro warn­ing Reg­gie is on his feet, switch­blade in hand. He is en­thralled by the tiny click it makes when he press­es the but­ton with his thumb and the blade re­veals it­self, locked in place. One of life’s small plea­sures. He comes straight at Jones, who is eas­i­ly able to side­step him. Mo­men­tum car­ries Reg­gie too far, and he stum­bles, falling against a brick wall like a wind-up toy out of juice.

“Pa­thet­ic,” says Do­lores. She is hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing. It’s her state of mind. “You think you’re a full-grown man, Reg­gie? You think you’re a pro­tec­tor? Think again.”

He hangs his head, re­turn­ing the knife to his pock­et a sec­ond time. Jones feels what might be ver­ti­go. What he longed for, leav­ing George Ma­son, was some­thing dif­fer­ent. Here it is. Is this good luck?

Do­lores opens a plas­tic bag and takes out three bot­tles of cold-brew cof­fee. She hands them around. They drink the cof­fee, which has a strong chem­i­cal taste. Jones won­ders if she might be poi­son­ing him, cun­ning­ly giv­ing him the bad bottle.

The cof­fee, or the wor­ry, leads by a path he can­not fol­low to an ad­mis­sion: he quit school be­cause he was rest­less and bored, and be­cause liv­ing on cam­pus felt like be­ing in prison. There has to be more, is one way of putting it.

He would like to hear more from Do­lores about the ma­chine that ate Amer­i­ca, and she can­not help oblig­ing him. So­cial com­men­tary is her pas­sion. She takes pride in her point of view.

“They locked me up,” she tells Jones.

Reg­gie lis­tens rapt­ly even though he has heard the sto­ry who knows how many times.

“Where was this?”

“New Eng­land.”

“Why won’t you say which state?”

“What if you’re work­ing for them?”

“I’m not, I’m not work­ing for anybody.”

She shakes her head pon­der­ous­ly at his naïveté.

“They own you. With the very first breath your lit­tle lungs take in, they own you, Jones. The soon­er you ad­mit it, the bet­ter off you’ll be.”

“How long did they keep you locked up?”

“Six months to the day, and don’t ask me how I got away.”

“Why are you here, in Washington?”

She looks over at Reg­gie to make sure he is fol­low­ing the conversation.

“They won’t shut me up. They can try, but I’ll keep hol­ler­ing the truth at them come hell or high water.”

“Un­til?”

This ques­tion, which Jones asks in in­no­cence, strikes Reg­gie as a provo­ca­tion, or an af­front. In­stant­ly he’s on his feet with the knife at Jones’s throat, press­ing hard enough to score the skin. This time Do­lores does not call him off. She pro­nounces sentence.

“This boy is on the wrong side of history.”

That’s all Reg­gie needs. The knife im­ping­ing, he yanks Jones to his feet. He snarls some­thing hard to un­der­stand, then march­es Jones back down the al­ley to the street. Jones feels blood trick­ling down his neck.

“I’m not on the wrong side,” he in­sists. “I’m on your side.”

But Reg­gie won’t hear it. As they reach the street he re­moves the knife from Jones’s neck. He looks up and down the street, alert for en­e­mies. Then he says in a sin­is­ter whis­per, “She’s a hero. She’s fear­less. She’s all that stands be­tween us and catastrophe.”

“You love her. You’d do any­thing for her.”

Again his in­ef­fec­tu­al snort. “Wouldn’t you?”

Jones has had enough. He has learned some­thing and is ready to be shut of Do­lores and her acolyte.

“Lis­ten,” says Reg­gie, grab­bing him by the arm.

In his weak­ness, Jones re­al­izes, Reg­gie can be a nasty man. “What?”

“I want to take her out to din­ner. Tonight. Not to­mor­row, tonight.”

It’s an ef­fec­tive way to put the bite on him, Jones de­cides. He eas­es a twen­ty from his wal­let. Luck­i­ly, it seems to be enough.

“You were nev­er here,” Reg­gie says, fold­ing the bill by thirds and jam­ming it in­to his jeans pock­et. “You nev­er saw her, you nev­er even heard of the woman, right?”

“Right.”

Then Reg­gie is gone, ea­ger to hear more about the threat to Amer­i­ca. Jones wish­es he had a hand­ker­chief. He would like to wipe the blood from his neck. He walks, feel­ing pret­ty good as he reach­es the in­ter­sec­tion of the num­bered street with a let­tered street. It’s go­ing to be hard to top his first few hours as a col­lege dropout.

Filed under Fiction on December 6th, 2024

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