I went out to get the mail in yesterday. For those of you who are really serious about writing, I don’t need to explain the fixation I have for the mailbox. For the rest of you, let me say that the mailbox is Mecca, the sacred totem that must be faced once daily, the bringer of all news foul, yet a comfort beyond all my ability to describe.

So you can see why I was flustered when I discovered that our recent ice storm had temporarily welded the danged thing shut with a sheet of ice as thick as a standard pencil.

I stared at it for a moment, then tried the key anyway.

Why do we do things we already know aren’t going to work? The key butted ineffectually up against the ice.

In the meantime, the temperature is fifteen degrees, and I’m standing there in my leather jacket, a pair of galoshes over my slippers, and no hat fer cryin’ out loud. My cheeks are beginning to sting, and I’m sticking an inch-long key up against a glacial sheet of ice, pretending that it’ll somehow pierce its way into the heart of the mailbox and help me fish out the stack of rejections that must surely be behind that wall.

So I did what any self-respecting male of the species would do. I made a fist and hit the mailbox.

A small piece of the ice shattered, but did not fall away.

So I hit it again.

It gave me satisfaction, I’ll admit, but it became obvious that it would be nearly as quick to let the ice melt as it would be for me to pound the stuff away with my fist.

By now my ears hurt and I’m having flashbacks to when my dad read me Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”, a short story – probably a Novella – about a man in the Yukon who freezes to death. (Let’s not spend, much time thinking about why an adult would read a story to an eight-year-old about a man freezing to death in the Yukon, okay?).

Despite the cold, though, I felt another tickle up my spine. The mailbox stood there mocking me – you know – “Wassa matter, Ron?” it whispered. “You gonna let a little ice keep you from seeing what’s behind the box that Carol Wayne is standing beside?” (Let’s also not spend any time wondering why the mailbox is talking like a truly psychedelic combination of Richard Prior and Monty Hall, okay? We’ll just blame it on the ice crystals that were forming in my brain and leave it at that.)

At this point, it’s gotten personal. I would sooner be carried into the hospital stiff as a board than return to the house empty handed.

So I trudged stiff-legged back to the garage, grabbed the hammer and a heavy screwdriver, lashed the dogs to the sled, and set off on my own version of the Iditarod. A minute later, I stood before the mailbox, chipping at ice like an arctic Michelangelo.

Cars crunched by, their drivers grinning at me and shaking their heads like I was insane. I ignored them, though. After all, if they couldn’t see the damned gremlins sitting on the hood of their cars, who was I to flag them down, eh?

Ice flew through the air like ocean froth against the bow of Ahab’s ship. Tears in my eyes froze against my corneas, blurring my vision. If I had a beard, frost would have formed in it from my exhalations. But I was not to be swayed. I was winning, you see. The mailbox was yielding.

Finally, I could slide the key into the slot. A moment later, the rest of the ice was gone.

I was victorious. All of Rome was mine.

The fact that I could no longer feel my ears did nothing to dampen my soaring spirit.

So I turned the key, and opened the box.

Inside was a single letter, envelope neatly sealed and addressed to me.

. . .

If anyone wants a special rate Visa Card, let me know.

Copyright (c) 1999-2008 Ron Collins
All rights reserved.
No parts of this essay may be reprinted
without the expressed written consent of the author.

Author Bio:

Ron Collins lives in Columbus, Indiana with his wife and their daughter. He is an engineer by daylight and a writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy at night. He has published several short stories, including work in Dragon Magazine, the original anthology Return of the Dinosaurs, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s FANTASY Magazine (for which he was awarded a Cauldron Award for being a readers’ favorite author), and Adventures of Sword and Sorcery. Ron Collins’ writing has also appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Dragon, and several other magazines and anthologies. His writing has received a Writers of the Future prize, and a CompuServe HOMer Award. You can find out much more about him at his award-winning web site, –> TYPOSPHERE <–.

Ron and the Mailbox is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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He slammed his book shut and pushed the wooden chair away from the small kitchen table. He had to do something. They had been sharing an office for more than three months. The semester was almost over. Randall couldn’t let Kayla choose another statistician for her thesis. He knew her work better than anyone, and he definitely wanted the chance to spend more time with her.

Randall began to devise a plan as he showered away the sweat and grime from his workout session earlier that evening. He had to think of some way to casually open up the lines of communication in a positive direction. Not that talking about work wasn’t positive for the sake of their careers, but it did nothing for their social lives. “What social life?” he muttered to himself.

Suddenly, a light bulb appeared over his head so vividly he thought, in the midst of his shower, it might actually electrocute him. He scrambled across the wet tile floor, grabbing a towel from the rack as he slid past. He returned to the kitchen and frantically searched through the recipe box on the counter. “Here it is,” he said aloud, for no one else to hear.

As he carefully mixed together the ingredients of his Grandmother’s Christmas Cookie recipe, he couldn’t help but wonder if God created the holidays just so people would have a reason to talk. The cookies would be his ice-breaker.

He had known from the moment he met her in August that they would be perfect for each other. Kayla was at the University to complete a Ph.D. in Applied Psychology, and he would soon be done with his doctorate in Statistical Analysis. They were both 28. He had worked for two years compiling stats at the state university before returning for the final leg of his education. She had joined the service right out of high school which accounted for the delay in her completion. Unfortunately, they also shared a habit that had kept them from conversing much socially thus far: They were both wholly dedicated to their work.

Randall had planned to ask Kayla over to his apartment for some of his famous enchiladas after the bustle of the beginning of the semester. Mid-terms arrived before he even gave the idea another thought. They did speak, but in short, choppy, to-the-point sentences about work. They proof-read each other’s grant proposals. They did normal office-mate activities. Randall knew that if he didn’t make his move now, it was possible that she would find another statistician and change offices over the break. Randall had taken the time to check up on her a little. It was not only with him that she kept a tight lip; it seemed to be with everyone. He was determined to break through that shell and get her to open up.

Kayla Ellen Frank spritzed her short hair into place in the university gym locker room. She dabbed on a few strokes of make-up and then sat for a moment to review the plans for the day. She removed the leather schedule book from her matching leather soft-sided briefcase and crossed the 6:30 a.m. aerobics class off of the top of her day. She would go directly to Founders Hall to teach the 8:00 a.m. freshman psych class with only a brief stop at her office. From 10:00 until 1:00 a.m. she would work on research. For lunch, she would grab a sandwich at the deli and then type in her latest findings. “I have to learn to type faster,” she scolded herself, eyeing the one hour block of time that she knew the task would exceed. She had a few minutes to review the chapter for her own class and then another freshman psych class in the evening.

Kayla dropped the briefcase on her desk with a loud thud. She opened the bottom drawer to remove the graded term papers to return to her students.

“Would you like a cookie?”

The familiar voice disturbed Kayla’s trance-like concentration. “What?” she asked hastily as she spun around to see her office-mate. She hadn’t even noticed him when she walked in.

“A cookie.” Randall held out the plate of painstakingly decorated cookies.

“No thanks,” she said, returning to her work. “I just finished my aerobics class, I’d hate to spoil all my hard work.” Kayla scooped up the pile of papers and turned to leave the tiny office. “Maybe I’ll have one at lunch,” she said to Randall who still had the plate half extended toward her.

Her stomach grumbled as she stepped into the hallway. Kayla had forgotten to go to the grocery store for three nights in a row now. The only thing edible in her apartment that morning had been a few crumbs at the bottom of the package of crackers that she had eaten as a snack the night before. “Maybe I will take one now,” she said, poking her head back in the door.

“Help yourself.” Keeping his face toward his reading, Randall motioned to the plate now situated at the corner of his desk. He smiled to himself. It was quite an accomplishment to make Kayla Frank change her direction midstride.

“Did you make these?” Kayla asked taking a bite of a bell with yellow icing and a sparkly sugar coating.

“It’s my Grandmother’s recipe. I made them last night,” he said, succumbing to the urge to turn and face her.

Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why did you take the time to make cookies for no apparent reason. This is the end of the semester. We have finals coming up. We have. …”

He interrupted her all too familiar list of demands upon them. “I made them because I wanted to wish you Merry Christmas. I know that finals are coming, but Christmas is, too.”

I know Christmas is coming,” Kayla said, defending herself. “I scheduled an hour for shopping next week sometime.”

Randall grinned as he watched her pop the last bite of the cookie into her mouth.

“Oh, don’t analyze me,” she said with a sneer.

“I’m not.”

“Yes you were. I do it myself when I stop to think how ridiculous I sound sometimes.” She returned his smile. “I’m just very driven.”

“I know,” he said feeling more sure of himself with every word of their brief encounter. That was one of the many reasons he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She shared his love of research and knowledge. He wanted to share more.

“Could I have another?” she asked, pointing toward the plate.

“Of course.”

And then she was gone.

The plate was now neatly covered with plastic wrap still in its place at the corner of Randall’s desk. Her typing went even slower than usual. She couldn’t help but think that another cookie would be a delicious finish to her bland lunch. Each time the thought crossed her mind, she would then scold herself, “I am not supposed to eat anything sweet until Sunday.”

Kayla allowed herself one day a week to binge on sinful food. Health was important to her. She walked to campus each day. She attended aerobics classes four mornings a week, and she counted every calorie that touched her lips. She was in complete control of every ounce of the 120 pounds on her 5’5″ frame.

She had resigned herself to being a hopeless control freak years ago. When she was a sophomore in college, she decided that she was going to try to break her compulsive habits. For a week, she didn’t allow herself to look at her schedule book. It was the worst 7 days of her life. She couldn’t sleep at night, worrying that she may have forgotten something. Ultimately, she’d learned to accept herself for who she was, bad habits included. Balance was what she knew she needed in her life. But at the present time, balance was what she did not have.

Calories or not, the temptation was too great. “He did make them for me,” she said to justify taking the cookie from his desk in his absence.

“I wonder if he really did make them just for me,” she thought as enjoyed the melt-in-your-mouth confection. “I haven’t taken the time to make a batch of cookies in years. I barely have time to make a salad.” She sighed. “I barely have time to even carry on a conversation.”

She stopped typing as she contemplated her last thought. She really could not remember the last time she had talked to someone simply for the joy of the other person’s company. She had one hour blocked off on Sunday and Thursday evenings to return phone messages, but for the past several weeks, she had appropriated that time for research. She ate her meals in her office buried in her work. The few sentences she had shared with Randall that morning were probably the most socializing she had done since the department’s Halloween party. She had meant to ask Randall why he hadn’t attended, but of course, she hadn’t. There always seemed to be more important things demanding her immediate attention.

A wave of panic moved over her. “What if he made me cookies, because he is moving to another office?” He couldn’t move. He was the perfect statistician for her work. She had planned on him compiling the data for her thesis, even if she hadn’t gotten around to asking him yet. She had assumed that he knew her intentions. “If I haven’t told him, how could he know?” she asked herself. Grabbing her schedule book from the corner of her cluttered desk, she scrawled, in pen, “Ask Randall to do Stat work on Thesis.”

Now that she was taking the time to think about it, she actually liked just talking to Randall. They did not do it very often, but every once in a while they would exchange a few words about something other than work. With the schedule book still open, she entertained the idea of making a note to herself to strike up a gregarious conversation with him. She abandoned the idea. Ordering herself to speak with him on friendly terms would only seem contrived. Dialogue had to flow. It had a certain amount of spontaneity that had to be respected. That, she remembered. Even if she hadn’t practiced the art in quite some time.

She reached for another cookie as she unsuccessfully tried to concentrate on her typing.

It was late in the evening when Randall opened the door of the darkened office. He knew that Kayla would not be done for another hour. He could use the time to grade some of the papers his undergraduate students had handed him a few moments before. He couldn’t help but notice that there were a few cookies missing. “She likes them,” he thought, smiling as a rush of pride put an involuntary grin on his face.

With red pen poised, he pulled a paper off of the top of the lofty stack. He was able to concentrate on the task at hand for only moments at a time. His mind kept returning to Kayla. He didn’t have the slightest clue what his next move would be.

“I’ll march right up and kiss her,” he told himself boldly, followed immediately by a boom of his own laughter. That wasn’t his style.

“I’ll offer to do the statistical analysis for her thesis.” He abandoned that idea, knowing that it would only launch them into a long discussion about research and work. He looked forward to those topics, but that could wait. He needed something personal for tonight.

“Maybe she’ll actually let me walk her home,” he thought with skepticism. He had offered to do so on several occasions when Kayla worked late. She only lived about a half mile from campus, but he worried about her just the same. It was a little out of the way for him, but he would have gladly made the extra steps. He had to admire her steadfast independence. Sometimes he would walk by her apartment later in the night, to make sure that her light was on and that she had made it home safely.

“Be calm. Be yourself. Offer her another cookie,” Randall coached himself as the time for Kayla’s return approached.

“You’re still here,” she said as she slung her coat over the back of her chair.

“I had some papers to grade,” he said as he turned to face the object of his desire. The statement was almost a lie. The papers did have to be graded, but he could just as easily have taken them home. The truth was, he wanted to see her again.

“Thank you for the cookies. They were delicious.”

“There are more.” He motioned toward the plate.

“I really shouldn’t.”

“But you will,” he said playfully, pulling the plastic wrap back and holding them close enough for her to breath in their sweet aroma.

With cookie in hand, she sat to face the ever present mound of demands on her desk. “I am so tired. I don’t even want to work on anything else tonight.”

“I’m about done here,” he lied. “Would you like me to walk you home?”

Her familiar statement, “No thanks. I can make it on my own,” almost passed her lips. “Why not?” she asked herself. “That would be nice,” she said with a smile.

The cool night air brought Randall back to reality. He was stunned that she had actually accepted his offer. It was all coming together. They didn’t charge forth, trying to reach their destination in record time as was usual for them both; they casually strolled. Their frozen breath mingled together to form a cloud above them as they talked about old movies and music rather than bio-psychology and bell-curves.

“Why did you make those cookies?” Kayla asked point blank as they neared her apartment.

“Because I wanted you to enjoy them.” He hoped he was saying the right things. It all felt incredible.

“I have a party to go to on Sunday. It’s not really a party, just brunch with some old friends,” she stammered. “Could I have your cookie recipe? I would like to take some along.”

“How about I help you make them on Saturday?’ he suggested.

Kayla liked the warm feeling that she had not felt in so long as she accepted his offer. She had not taken the time to think of Randall as more than just a statistician. She liked how she thought of him now.

“How about some dinner first?” he added to the offer.

“That sounds even better.” She stopped at the front door of her building. She debated about asking him the question that had haunted her the entire walk home, but then decided she had to know. “You aren’t moving to a different office, are you?”

“No. What gave you that idea?”

“Never mind,” she said with a slightly embarrassed laugh. “I’m glad. I like you where you are.” She looked up at his deep brown eyes.

“I’m happy right where I am … now.” He added the last word with just enough emphasis for Kayla to know the real reason for the cookies.

Though uncomfortable, the cool nip of the night air had reminded Kayla not only that she needed to shop for a warmer parka but of sensation in itself. She had been so preoccupied lately that she had ignored all signals around her. How long had it been since she had allowed herself to linger in the faculty lounge long enough to smell the fantastic fragrance of freshly-brewed coffee? How long had it been since she had called her mother and listened to what she had to say? After all, listening didn’t obligate her to agree with what was said. How long had it been since she had taken the time to feel anything?

“Far too long,” she said aloud as she settled back to relax on the couch to savor her last cookie of the day.

“What a difference a day can make.”

Copyright © 1998-2008 Larisa Dawn Sutton
All rights reserved.

Author bio:

“Larisa Dawn is an Ohio writer and is the married mother of three children. She has her BSN from Bowling Green State University and works as a nurse at St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima, Ohio. Lara writes fiction and humor. Her work has also appeared in previous editions of The Blue Rose Bouquet, The Journal of Nursing Jocularity, and in local newspapers. She was also the tech editor for a diabetes cookbook. You can reach her at lara [at] blueroses [dot] com. “

The Charm of Christmas Cookies is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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One moment Jess was laughing beside a tree, the next he was racing through hell with the odor of death all around him. Chunks of frozen earth erupted from the ground and pelted him. Jess’ lungs and legs ached in the bitter cold as he dodged plumes of black smoke. His rucksack bumped wildly against him with every stride while his fingers held a white-knuckle grip on his rifle.

His unit has just arrived from the states, comprised of a portion of the United Nations medical relief convoy advancing toward Kosovo. Every vehicle at the rear of the convoy had just been destroyed and the forward vehicles remained under heavy shelling. E. & E., escape and evade Jess thought, as he left the outskirts of the village.

He headed across a field, crouched behind a long, low stone wall. Wearing winter white camouflage and a helmet of robin’s egg blue, he felt like a moving target in his peacekeeping uniform. Either side of the armed conflict could have been firing. The lumpy terrain of the open field exhausted him.

With the shelling finally in the distance, he dropped to his knees, gasping for air beside a barn. His wary blue eyes darted toward the field beyond. Mortar craters scarred freshly tilled land. He quickly stood again and slid along the cold stone wall of the structure. The smoking remains of a small house sat around the corner of the building.

He cautiously peered through the doors. Smaller and without the sound of livestock, it reminded Jess of his grandfather’s barn in Wisconsin. Against one wall, vacated stalls sat beneath a loft full of hay, and on the opposite wall, forsaken white feathers sprinkled the earthen floor near the empty coops. For an instant, he marveled that something so far from home could look and smell so familiar.

Bolting inside to the darkest corner of the barn, he silently hunkered down with his M-16 pointed outward. Jess fearfully scoured the structure’s desolate interior. The whites of his eyes looked pronounced against his young face, blackened by smoke and dirt. He strained to hear something other than his own breathing and the periodic shelling in the distance. It was nearly silent, and he had never felt so frightened in all of his nineteen years.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the muted gray light. From the open barn door, a triangle of pale sunlight revealed wisps of straw littering the floor. Dust danced in a square of light from the opening in the loft above him. He tried to think of something comforting, like the clean white socks, warm from the dryer, or a bowl of hot tomato soup and crackers, but he could only think of dying.

With his back to the wall and his weapon at the ready, he walked around the entire barn. He kept looking to the loft but there was no ladder. Feeling momentarily safe, Jess removed his blue helmet. His fair hair exposed, he wiped his damp face and neck. He replaced the helmet with the chinstrap hanging loose.

The longer he remained in the barn, the less he thought about dying. Now his challenge was to get back to safety. The barn door only revealed the shelled fields and rugged mountains; the loft offered a better view of the opposite direction.

Back home, his grandparents both insisted he stay away from the loft. His grandmother feared he would fall. His grandfather just said he would ruin the feed. They often hid the ladder when he came to visit. Just like at home, the wooden beams forming each vacant stall supported the loft and he scaled them with difficulty, carrying the extra weight of his rucksack and weapon.

Once in the loft, he listened intently before crawling on his hands and knees to the open loft door. One corner of the roofless farmhouse was still smoking while a red ball waited in the yard.

In the long valley beyond the house, troops moved in ragged formation down a distant road. He wondered which side they represented. Was it better to be found by one or the other? He searched the landscape in the fading sunlight for any sign of the peacekeepers. Seeing none, he sat down to keep watch. He cradled his weapon to his chest, feeling a chill as the sun set.

Within an hour, small campfires and smoldering ruins became the only lights in the valley, like diamonds thrown by the hand of God. He placed his canteen in the straw beside him after a long drink. When he reached for it again, it was moving. He jumped to his feet as the canteen disappeared beneath the pile of hay.

Jess stabbed the thick straw with the rifle barrel. When it hit something solid, he shouldered his weapon to fire. Before he could, the canteen mysteriously reappeared. Small fingers slipped away from the base of it and returned under the hay.

He pushed the rifle barrel into the hay again and heard a muffled whimper. Jess remembered the red ball outside the little farmhouse. He circled the mound of hay, poking it twice more before he stumbled over a ladder hidden by the straw. As he fell, a shot when through the roof of the barn. A wisp of humanity rose from the hay and scrambled toward the loft door. Jess jumped to his feet and took aim at the skirted silhouette in the moonlight.

“Freeze,” he yelled, unable to pull the trigger.

“Asha-a-a-d! Where are you?” she screamed in her native tongue.

Her hesitation before jumping gave Jess time to grab her arm. Her legs sailed out of the opening but the rest of her slight body remained inside. With his adrenaline pumping, he easily pulled her back into the loft and tossed her into a corner.

“Don’t make a sound,” he demanded, pointing his rifle at her.

“Ashaad,” she whimpered as she sank to her knees.

Her frightened stare hit Jess hard though he wouldn’t show it. Standing above her, pointing his rifle at her heart, he waited for her to make the slightest move. The young girl looked up through strands of tangled, dark hair at her white-suited attacker. She knew what would happen next but she wasn’t prepared. A girl of fifteen is never prepared to be raped.

Jess thought she was scrawny, with dirty clothes made from rough fabric. She crouched in the corner, her matted black hair full of straw. He watched her tears make white paths down her filthy cheeks.

“Don’t move,” he ordered.

Never taking his aim from her, Jess moved toward the loft door and closed it quietly. When she tried to crawl away from the corner, he placed on hand on her shoulder and pushed her back.

“Stay right there,” he commanded.

She cringed when he touched her. She shrank back into the corner, gasping from fear until she vomited.

“Oh, hell,” he said with a grimace. He located his handkerchief and tossed it at her. She refused to touch it.

“Use it,” he said nervously.

“What?” she asked in her only language, wondering what he said.

“Just keep quiet,” he said in a forceful voice. “If anyone finds me here, I’m dead meat and you’re going with me.”

She stared at him with dark eyes but didn’t respond. They remained like that for five minutes, watching each other and afraid to move.

“I’m going to sit down by the door,” he said, finally breaking the silence. He continued talking though there was no glimmer of understanding in her eyes. “Don’t move. Understand?”

“What are you going to do to me?” She wept timidly, speaking in words that were only gibberish to him.

“Of course you don’t understand me,” he said, whispering to himself. “Why should you? This whole fucking day has been a big a blunder as the rest of my military life. I didn’t want to join; my buddy did. I just went along for a laugh. He flunked the physical. How’s that for a laugh? And now I’m here, in this God forsaken country. And what for? I mean, who’s fighting who here? It’s not even big enough to be a country. It’s like New York declaring war on Rhode Island and New Jersey.”

“Are you going to kill me or what?” she asked, when he finally stopped raving.

He raised a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. She stopped talking. He sat down gingerly. The night was deafeningly quiet.

“Is this your barn?” he wondered aloud.

“I wish Ashaad would come back,” she whispered.

“What is ‘Ash-head’ anyway? Is that your name?” He pointed to her. “Are you ‘Ash-head’?”

“I won’t tell you anything. You’re a man, a soldier, just like all the rest, waiting for someone to kill.”

“I’m Jess,” he said, pointing to himself. “Jess.”

“Yes,” she mimicked in a questioning tone.

“Not ‘yes.’ Jess,” he repeated.

“Yes,” she said again.

“Oh forget it,” he said, pausing for a moment. Then he pointed to here and asked, “Ash-head?”

“Marijtka,” she said quietly, placing her hand against her chest.

“Mareesha,” he tried.

“Marijtka,” she repeated.

“Look, you can call me ‘Yes’ if I can call you Mareeshka,” he said.

“Marijtka,” she corrected him again.

“Shit, we can’t even say each other’s names.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she said in frustration.

“What did you say?” he asked.

They looked at each other in silence. She wasn’t even as old as he was; at least he didn’t think she was. He didn’t feel like putting himself in her shoes.

“Your house?” he asked, keeping his rifle trained on her as he nodded in the direction of the ruin outside. When she didn’t answer, he became more animated. “You, Mareeshka -”

“Marijtka,” she started but he continued.

“Mareeshka’s house,” he said, opening the loft door slightly and nodded toward it.

She hesitated, then pointed toward it and then to herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She looked at him curiously when he used a soft voice. She started to say something when voices from outside interrupted her.

Jess lunged toward her, pressing his rifle barrel against her side and covering her mouth with his hand. To his surprise, she pulled a long kitchen knife from her skirt pocket and held it to his throat. They remained frozen with their weapons on each other, until the voices passed.

“Give me the knife,” he whispered once the voices faded completely. She kept a life-threatening grip on her weapon.

“For God’s sake, I’ve got an M-16. Give me the knife,” he said angrily, taking it from her forcefully as she was putting it back in her skirt pocket.

“Don’t touch me,” she said immediately.

“Give me the damn knife,” he said, grabbing for it and ripping her skirt in the process.

“Don’t touch my clothes. I won’t take them off,” she said, muffling her fear as her tears began. She ran to the corner and pulled herself into a ball as he continued to reach for the knife.

“Stop, stop,” she said, helplessly.

“There,” he said, pulling away from her with the knife. She looked up as he started to throw it out the loft door. At the last second, he changed his mind and dropped it into the long pocket along his thigh.

“You wanted the knife?” she asked in disbelief.

“I don’t have any idea what your saying,” he said, leaning again the wall of the barn but keeping his rifle on her. By her reaction to the voices, he could tell she didn’t want to be discovered any more than he did. They sat opposite each other in silence, his weapon still on her but relaxed.

“My grandfather had a barn like this,” he said, not expecting her to understand. He lifted a handful of straw to his nose and took a big whiff. “Same smell.”

“I hope Ashaad comes back soon,” she told him for no reason.

“I wasn’t supposed to go in the loft but I always did. How about you?” Jess asked.

“He should have been back by now. I don’t think he’s coming.”

“Mareeshka…” he said and she looked at him. “It’s kind of pretty. Mareeshka.” For no real reason, he smiled at her.

“Yes,” she said softly.

“I’m glad you agree,” he laughed.

“Yes,” she said, looking confused and pointing at him.

“Oh, that ‘yes.’ Hey, so you can’t say ‘Jess.’ It doesn’t matter now. Hey, are you hungry?” he asked, as if he expected her to answer.

“Yes,” she said again and again he laughed.

“Great,” he said, knowing she didn’t know what she said. Trying to hold his rifle steady, he fumbled for a candy bar in the side pocket of his rucksack. When he produced it, her dark eyes grew wide. He took a bite and offered her one. She nearly devoured the whole thing.

“Hey wait -” he objected. She looked up in fear and slowly handed it back.

“Keep it,” he said, pushing her hand away. “You must be starving.”

She watched his face closely. He lifted her hand, the one that held the candy bar, toward her mouth.

“Go on. Really.”

She took a small bite and watched his face. He smiled and nodded. She took another, then another. When it was gone, she began licking the wrapper.

“God, don’t eat the wrapper,” he said, and she stopped instantly. “I’ve got more.” Against his better judgment, Jess shed his rucksack awkwardly as he held his rifle on her. He unzipped the top compartment and pulled out a brown package, one of his field MREs with pork chops in white letters. He held between his knees and opened it with her knife. He handed her the square, dry entree.

“These taste like dog shit.”

To his surprise, she handed it back.

“Don’t you want it?” he asked, staring at the hunk of food in his hand. She started to move toward him and he lifted his rifle at her. She hesitated, then continued, slowly taking his hand, the one holding the food, and pushing it toward his mouth. He took a single bite and handed it back. She took one also, then tried to return it.

“No, no. It’s all yours,” he laughed, pushing her hand toward her. She devoured the whole thing, barely swallowing. He handed her the rest of the packaged meal. She ate it without hesitating. When she finished it, she opened the wrapper of the pre-moistened napkin and started to eat it as well. After the first taste, she stopped immediately.

“That’s the napkin, silly,” he said softly.

“This tastes worse than the candy wrapper,” she answered.

“It’s for this,” he said, dabbing the corners of his mouth with an imaginary napkin in a formal style.

She laughed at him and it sounded like music. She wiped her face and then her hands. With the three days of dirt removed, she wasn’t as ugly as he thought. In fact, she was almost pretty. She handed him the napkin and motioned for him to rub his own cheeks. He didn’t understand why she wanted him to do that and was surprised, when he did, to see the napkin turn nearly black.

For no real reason, he handed her the comb in his pocket. She looked embarrassed at first, then struggled to pull the comb through her hair. Jess looked for something to sit on. Finding nothing, he removed his helmet, put it on the floor near the wall, and sat. Her hair seemed to grow longer as she combed it. It took a while with his small comb but she finally finished. Her black hair reached the middle of her back.

She tried to return the comb. Jess ran his fingers over his short sandy hair and wouldn’t accept it. She tucked it into the ripped pocket of her skirt, looked up and him, as if trying to decide how to say thank you. She could only give him a shy smile.

For the first time, he took his finger off the trigger. He would have asked her for a date if she had understood. He blew warm air into his fists, one at a time, then fingered the trigger again. She pulled her knees under her long skirt, wrapped her arms around them, and shivered. She pulled some hay around her but it didn’t help much.

Jess wandered to the loft door and opened it a crack. He stared at the small fires in the long valley. It was too cold to stand there for long, not that he could see much in the darkness. He closed the door and walked back to her. She watched every move he made.

“I get the feeling you don’t trust me,” he told her.

“What are you expecting for the food and the comb?” she asked him.

“If I sit beside you we will both be warmer,” he said. To Jess, it seemed a peculiar request to make of someone you held at gunpoint. Still the whole day had been like that. He knelt down on one knee, then both, moving slowly toward her.

“Don’t try it,” she whispered, watching him intently.

He sat down slowly then scooted next to her. She moved away.

He waited, then slid next to her again. After they moved halfway across the loft that way, Jess began to chuckle. By this time, there was straw all over them. He picked up a handful and let it trickle on top of her hair. She brushed it off immediately. He did it again, smiling the whole time. She grabbed a handful and threw it at his face. He tossed some back at her. Gathering hay with both hands, she threw as much as she could at him. He did not intend to let go of his weapon but he held his own in his one-armed battle of straw tossing. She couldn’t help herself. She was laughing at him.

“Go ahead,” he offered, getting up on his knees and throwing out his chest. “Hit me.”

She picked up her biggest armful yet and bombarded him for all she was worth. He didn’t move.

“Hit me again,” he teased, pushed more straw toward her for ammunition.

She gathered a huge armful again, but instead of throwing it at him, she tossed it in the air. It came down on them both.

The battle was over. She sat back, exhausted, leaning against the barn’s stone wall. He moved beside her and propped himself against the wall as well.

“My grandpa would have swatted me for that,” he said with a laugh.

“You have a nice laugh,” she said.

He looked at her but she didn’t move away. He slowly, slowly put his arm around her shoulders. She was stiff at first but eventually allowed her body to conform to his. He touched her small hand and played with her pinkie finger. It felt good not to be alone.

“Who are you, Yes?” she asked in a small voice.

“I’m warmer. Are you?” he answered.

When she fell asleep, he felt her steady breathing as she slumped into his lap. He petted her hair and closed his eyes as well.

Voices awoke them both with a start. It was nearly dawn.

Jess put his hand over Marijtka’s mouth and readied his weapon. She listened intently for a moment, and then she covered his mouth. They weren’t her friends either. Marijtka looked down frantically, moving straw aside to reveal a knothole. They both lie down quietly on the loft floor to take turns peering at the enemy. When Marijtka first looked, there were six. When Jess looked there were ten. If he had been alone, he would have surrendered. With Marijtka, he was immediately put on a side, and from her reaction, not the right one.

With all he had heard about the atrocities of war, especially to women, he knew he had to defend them both. He suddenly began to pile straw over Marijtka. She resisted at first, then tried to help. At the last moment, he slid the kitchen knife under the pile to her. It disappeared from sight as Jess lay on his stomach and grappled for his helmet.

Jess watched through the knothole. The one in charge appeared to be the tall, dark man with three days’ growth of beard and a red kerchief at his neck. He tapped the three men closest to him, then pointed to the loft. They scaled the support beams, as Jess had, toward the loft. With Marijtka under the straw behind him and his weapon ready, Jess waited for their heads to appear. Jess shot the first one before he spotted them. A second head appeared momentarily, then dropped from sight. Jess let a round fly in the second soldier direction.

Before he could think, Jess was on his feet and blasting round after round down into the barn. In seconds that passed like hours, the men below at first considered returning fire, then opted for escape. Three lay on the barn floor, dying, while the others fled. Jess jumped to the loft window, hoping to see them flee but he didn’t. He held his breath, trying to watch down in the barn and out the loft window at the same time. In the quiet, he felt a sense of dread.

He got back on his stomach and crawled to the knothole. The three motionless bodies still lay on the floor of the barn.

The enemy vehicle, just outside the open barn doors, remained empty. Marijtka started to rise but he pushed her head down, recovering her with straw.

The silence gave way to a squeaking sound outside the loft door. Jess turned to see two men, hoisted by the others up the hay lift pulley rope, fly in the opening. Jess fired at the first, sending him back out the door. The second fired at Jess but missed. When Jess hit him, he fell on the pile of hay and Marijtka. He heard her muffled scream and turned as three more scaled the support beams into the loft. Jess was able to pick off the first two before the third one shot him.

Jess’s weapon flew from his arms as blood oozed, then flowed from his shoulder. As the soldier prepared to finish Jess off, Marijtka’s knife stabbed him through the calf. The soldier fell backwards in great pain, tripping over the ladder and careening out of the loft.

Jess was able to recover his rifle, and though dizzy, fired down into the barn to kill the soldier who shot him.

Marijtka shrieked as he did and when he looked at her, she was pointing toward the loft door. The leader and the last soldier were making their way into the loft. With a lousy aim, Jess fired and fired and fired and fired. Both soldiers leaped out the loft door to the ground. As they fled in their jeep, Jess keep up his volley until they were only a swirl of dust on the horizon.

Jess crept around the loft in a daze, trying to check both the barn, the area outside the barn doors, and then back to the loft door. After three checks of both, he dropped his weapon and fell unconscious on the floor of the loft.

“Yes?” Marijtka whispered from under the hay and the body of the dead intruder. She heard nothing.

“Yes?” she said again, pushing aside the hay and the body of the intruder above her.

She stared into his face but he didn’t respond, as the blood from his shoulder stained the floor of the loft and slipped through the slats in the floor to the barn below.

The first things Jess noticed when he woke were Marijtka’s tears on his hand and a burning pain in his shoulders. She had his canteen beside her, trying to keep him cool with the moistened fabric she ripped from her skirt.

“The rucksack,” he said, pointing to it sprawled open on the other side of the loft. She brought it to him. He tried three times to look in it, collapsing each time. Marijtka began removing items one by one and showing them to him. Each time he shook his head until she uncovered the box with the red cross on it. She poured antiseptic on his shoulder, which stung like hell. She covered his wounds with bandages, wrapping his shoulder over and over until the blood wasn’t quite so noticeable.

Just as she finished taping it into place, she froze. They both heard the sound of trucks pulling up outside. She crept to the loft door for a look. Jess attempted to follow her but the pain stopped him. She backed away from the opening in disbelief.

“What?” Jess tried to rise again, but was unable to do so. “Shit! How many?” he asked, showing her fingers. “Five? Ten? Fifteen?”

When she opened and closed both of her hands three times, he knew it was hopeless. She picked up his helmet, pointed to it, then pointed outside. He looked at her curiously.

She pointed to the helmet again and pointed individually to the each soldier below.

“Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.” Then she pointed to him. “Yes.”

“Up here,” he yelled, then smiled at her. “We’re up here and we need help.”

Copyright © 1998-2008 Luanne F. Oleas
All rights reserved.

Author bio:

“Luanne F. Oleas aka LadyLu is the author of Wild Dancing and other novels. Her The Pirate and The Butterfly is one of The Blue Rose Bouquet‘s most popular stories. In addition, she is an op on the #Authors Undernet chat channel (one of the Top 10 channels on the Undernet). This California writer’s work has appeared in Reader’s Digest and other publications.”

A Night in the Loft is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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In the year of lost imagination, magnolias forgot to bloom, Congress taxed the wind, and America’s last fiction publisher closed. When the janitor locked the doors on the final day, Vartan Blazer watched from across the street with a bottle in a brown bag. His sheep dog, Ranger, lay by his side, paws crosses, muzzle down.

Two hours later, the young man left the cement bench. Ranger trotted by his side, a walking bag of rags with no eyes and a black nose. Vartan wandered through New York City’s gray streets in his orange trench coat. The wind stole his yellow fedora, sending it higher than the diesel-streaked skyscrapers that pierced the charcoal sky.

Snow hid in his dark, spongy curls and the pockets of his green jeans, soaking through his sandals to his red and purple socks.

He slipped up seven flights of stairs and wrestled with the lock on his studio flat. Inside, he sank into a worn chair, eliciting a familiar complaint from the springs. An old Fridgedaire chugged rhythmically beside the only window. Vartan eyed his unpublished manuscripts, stacked in a hopeless pile in one corner of the sparsely furnished room. Ranger rested his head on Vartan’s knee as if he understood the wet diamonds hiding in Vartan’s eyes — one blue, one brown.

Vartan took a job as a desk clerk but lost it a week later. He could still hear his boss screaming about the personal notes he wrote to answer customers’ questions. Vartan quickly found another position in a corporate mail room. He soon lost it since he couldn’t resist writing poetic thoughts on shipping invoices.

A year and six jobs passed since the closing of the last fiction house. Vartan pawned his typewriter to buy food and burned his dictionary for warmth. When his blankets wore thin, he covered himself with the pages of his stories.

Winter passed but the world stayed cold. Cherry trees lined the streets, refusing to bloom. Practical thoughts filled people’s minds and they dreamed in black and white. They didn’t tell stories at their kitchen tables or remember how to fall in love.

One Wednesday afternoon, Vartan wandered down a block of brownstones after losing another job. Sitting on a long branch of a bloomless tree, a boy in a striped tee shirt and worn jeans attracted a crowd. Four rational adults on the sidewalk argued with him. As Vartan approached, he heard the boy shouting through sobs.

“I won’t!” the boy said, shaking the blonde hair from his dark eyes.

“Be sensible,” said the man below him. Vartan imagined the man had once looked like the youngster, before his freckles faded and his eyes grew weary. Now the grown-up folded his arms above his expanded waistline and proceeded to simplify the situation. “You could play a video game.”

“I’ve played them.”

“Watch TV,” said a dark-haired lady in sensible shoes.

“I did that,” the boy answered, taking a deep breath.

“Just come down,” said the man. “I’ll find something exciting for you.”

“This is exciting,” said the boy, removing a small revolver from his pocket.

“No, son,” the father said, anxiously starting for the tree trunk.

“Come up here and I’ll pull the trigger,” said the boy, pointing the barrel at his heart.

“Call the police,” said the grandmother in a sweat suit, interrupting her power walk.

“Just tell me what you want,” his father pleaded. A homeless man and a mother with twins in a stroller joined the crowd on the sidewalk. A balding stranger in a designer suit and loafers stopped beside Vartan to disapprove.

“I want a real adventure of my own,” the boy answered.

“No one has his own adventure,” the well dressed stranger said firmly.

“I do,” Vartan said, removing one hand from the pocket of his orange coat to point to himself. Ranger barked in agreement.

“I don’t believe you,” said the boy, lowering his weapon to give Vartan a second look.

“Baloney,” said the well-dressed man with authority. “No one has his own adventure.”

“That’s what I thought,” said the boy, raising the gun again.

“But I do,” Vartan said, pushing away from the railing on the brownstone’s stoop. He removed his non-existent hat and gave a sweeping bow. “I’m Vartan Blazer, storyteller extraordinaire, and I’ll give you an adventure, if you have the time.”

“He’s a crackpot,” said the grandmother. “Look at his clothes.”

“This is a family matter,” said the father to Vartan. “None of your concern.”

Vartan shrugged and started to walk away.

“I want to hear him,” said the boy.

Vartan looked back at the father, who looked at the revolver and then gave a slow nod in Vartan’s direction. Vartan pocketed both hands and walked back toward the tree. Ranger groaned and stretched out on the sidewalk beside him.

“Long ago, when the wind was free and the magnolias remembered how to bloom, a child was born during the magic age in Paris. His mother, a painter of rainbows, always dressed him colorfully. His father, a penniless poet, christened him Anton Bravado. His parents barely earned enough to feed him properly and after his younger sister was born, food grew more scarce. When Anton was. …”

Vartan stopped for a moment and looked at the boy in the tree.

“How old are you?”

“Ten,” he answered.

“As I suspected. Exactly Anton Bravado’s age when he decided that starving was no way to live. His stomach ached from lack of food, but he never said a word. Every night, he listened to his little sister, Angelle, cry herself to sleep in pain. Every day, he watched people throw away more food than his parents could afford.

On the night of his tenth birthday, Anton slipped from his parent’s small shack on the banks of the River Seine. He stole a dinghy and rowed from the Left Bank to the Right Bank where he robbed a boulangerie. He headed home with more bread on board than he had seen in his young life. A stowaway — a very fat rat — consumed half of his treasure before he docked the boat. Anton Bravado threw the animal out when he reached the Left Bank, vowing two things. First, to always be a marauder so he could feed the hungry and, second, to always keep his ship free of stowaways.

For years, he sailed the Seine by night, robbing patisseries and boulangeries to feed his sister and the street orphans. By day, he evaded the authorities with a cunning only the poor can know. After one particularly handsome theft, in which he stole enough bread and cheese to feed all the prisoners in the Bastille, the head of the gendarmes vowed to have his head.

For weeks, Anton Bravado slept in basements and crossed the town on rooftops. He could no longer make his nightly raids on the Right Bank. He gave his dinghy to the bravest orphan he knew and headed across the countryside. Before leaving, he promised to return with the grandest treasure, the one that would feed them all.

For such a booty, he needed a larger body of water and a bigger vessel. When he reached Morlaix, he took a job as a crew member on a large ship. Anton Bravado dressed and acted like the other sailors, except for the rainbow sash he always wore. He became the finest fisherman in the Bay of Biscayne and the bravest soldier in the Great Tuna Wars.

No one knew that every night, he plotted to gain control of the ship. Anton memorized the captain’s every move. How he liked his gin. How he beat the men when he was drunk. How he sold the finest catch and left them only scraps. How he fancied red-haired women.

After months at sea, they put to port in St. Jean. Anton headed for the Shop of Antiquities with a month’s pay in his pocket. Anton carefully examined the selection of compasses, stolen from only the finest sailors. The one-eyed owner of the old shop watched the handsome Anton. He’d grown now tall and strong from pulling in nets with the largest catches and loading canons with the heaviest charges. In a coarse whisper, the owner beckoned him to the back of the store.

“I have a better compass here,” he said, limping past Anton as he lead the way to the back room. Overhead, rusted lanterns hung from the low beams, knit together with cob webs. With a cloud of dust, the one-eyed man pulled back a pile of canvas sail, revealing a sea chest. The old man raised and lowered the lid quickly to remove a compass but Anton noticed the folded paper on which it had rested. He listened to the old man’s stories of windless days and stormy nights on uncharted seas and bought the old compass with his month’s pay. That night, Anton returned and stole the folded paper and his month’s pay, as smoothly as he stole the baguettes from the shops on the Right Bank.

After leaving the shop, Anton visited every tavern in town. When he found the woman with reddest hair, Anton promised her his month’s pay if she slipped a tainted bottle of gin to the captain. The next night, Anton gave the woman his money in return for the captain’s body in a bag. He brought it back to the ship while rest of the crew was ashore. Anton quietly loosed the riggings and let the breeze fill the sails as the sea lapped against the hull. When the light from the red-haired lady’s room shrunk to a twinkle, a heavy bag hit the dark water and Anton was free.

Sailing the large ship alone exhausted Anton but he liked it. He steered by his compass by day and by the stars at night. During calm weather, he studied the map he stole from the one-eyed man until he knew it by heart. It showed the place where the River Seine met the sea and beyond it, the maze of the lost city of Atlantis. He dreamed of what treasure lay beneath the X at the center of the twists and turns.

When the winds blew, he fought with the rigging and the wheel. After two months of sailing alone, a huge, glass dome arose from the sea. Beneath it, the lost city, its streets turned to waterways when it sank beneath ocean surface.

As Anton steered toward the opening of the maze, a sea monster rose behind him and followed him beneath the dome. It struck the ship’s rudder with the horns protruding from its green, scaly head. Masts of old ships wedged in its long, yellow teeth like rough toothpicks. Flames shot from its large nostrils, smelling of burnt seaweed and singeing the sails. The map Anton studied so carefully, instantly caught fire and turned to ash. The monster blocked the route to the open sea. Anton could only hope to lose the beast in the maze, without getting lost himself.

Their chase lasted a week as Anton strained to remember every line on the old man’s map. When the beast closed in, Anton continually doused the sails with salt water, then rose them to capture the wind created by the heat of the monster’s fire. Anton sailed as he had never sailed before and the creature, not knowing the maze, would disappear at times, then reappear, fighting to stay with the ship. Only the last set of twists and turns lost the beast for good. Anton sailed on toward the area marked by the X on the map.

“The beasts still exist,” Vartan said to the boy in the tree.

“I’ve never seen them on TV,” the boy answered in disbelief.

“Ah, Anton Bravado lost them all, except one, in the maze,” Vartan assured him. “If you could find the lost city of Atlantis, you would have an adventure.”

“Nonsense,” said the well-dressed man. “A fictitious legend. Nothing more.”

“So that’s the adventure?” asked the boy with a disappointment in his voice.

“No, that’s where the adventure begins. For Anton Bravado not only discovered the treasure at the center of the maze of Atlantis, but he was strong enough to haul it aboard. Inside an ancient vault, lay all the gold from the Bank of Atlantis, kept safe for centuries by the maze. With a portion of it, Anton bought a ship. The rest he saved, vowing to add to it so no one would ever go hungry again.

The ship he bought was the finest ever built. He named her Desire and outfitted her with silk sails and rigging from the strongest hemp. The orphan to whom he entrusted his first dinghy became his first mate. He recruited the rest of his crew from the poorest areas of every port he visited, inviting them to go marauding.

Anton and his crew regularly sailed from Paris to Tibet by way of the African Canal, returning with grand prizes. The canal, though the quickest way to the East from France, was also the most dangerous. Huge killer snakes with black fangs and black, leathery skin with a red diamond pattern, swam just below the water’s surface. Traveling in large, swift packs, they waited for ships to be caught in the canal on calm days. Working together, they would surround such vessels, rocking them back and forth, casting sailors from the decks, one by one and swallowing them whole.

Anton Bravado never entered the canal without a good wind at his back. Some trips he would wait weeks at the canal’s entrance, until he felt the wind he knew would last. Then, he would sail down the waterway, laughing at the swarms of snakes slithering alongside Desire’s hull.

One a windy, marauding day, as Anton steered Desire through the African Canal, a tired African butterfly landed on the wheel. Anton, remembering his vow to allow no stowaways, scooped up the brightly colored moth to toss it to the snakes but hesitated. He examined its wings, as colorful as the rainbows in his mother’s paintings that never sold.

“In honor of my mother, butterfly, you can stay and rest,” Anton said, placing the butterfly back on the wheel.

“Thank you,” said the butterfly in a small voice. “I shall always be your friend.”

Anton roared with laughter, half at the sound of a talking butterfly and half at the thought of him needing a butterfly’s friendship.

“What could you ever do for me?” Anton asked. “I’m on my way to Tibet to fight the evil monks. They slaughtered the Sisters of St. Bonadventure so they could steal the Kashmir ruby. Such a gem would allow me to feed all the orphans in France. Do you think you could help me fight such men?”

“No,” the simple creature answered. “An African butterfly would never survive in Tibet.”

“Then what use could the friendship of a tired butterfly be?”

Still, Anton allowed the butterfly to remain on the wheel for the rest of the day. After a long rest, it flew away, looking again like something from Anton’s mother’s paintings. Just after it left, a storm hit that would have defeated the average sailor but not Anton Bravado. He stayed at the wheel night and day for a week, cursing the winds and blaming his bad luck on the butterfly he allowed to stowaway.

Two weeks later, Desire finally neared a remote port town in Tibet. On the day they docked, rumors of sea monsters filled the taverns near the harbor. Anton Bravado went to the local tailor and ordered five suits made of white yak fur for four of his finest marauders and himself. The funeral of a fisherman, supposedly killed by a sea monster, caused the tailor to waste precious days making formal suits before he could begin on the yak suits. Again, Anton cursed the butterfly.

When the suits were finished, Anton instructed the tailor to sew him a large bag from the same white fur. Finally, he and his men donned the suits and headed up the steep hills to the monastery, the location of the Kashmir ruby. When they found the remote hideaway, the camouflaged marauders hid in the snow drifts of the high mountains for three days. Anton and his men studied the times the monks said their daily prayers. They watched each day as the same four monks removed the Kashmir ruby from its sacred resting place in the open square for its daily shining. In order to protect the gem, eight double-sided axes swung from ropes overhead, their sharp edges glinting in the sun. The marauders monitored the rhythmic fashion in which the monks extracted the ruby, each man ducking sequentially in a queer dance that allowed their heads to remain upon their shoulders.

On the fourth day, after the monks climbed the far hill for their morning prayers, Anton and four men crept into the square at the heart of the monastery. Anton positioned each man as he remembered the monks standing, and they removed the Kashmir ruby, just as the monks did. After slipping it into the snow white sack, they carried it away.

Anton Bravado led his marauders through a stone canyon, taking the most rugged trail to avoid detection. His men, struggling with the white sack, followed him. They were almost out of sight when a dead branch on the canyon wall ripped a hole in the sack. The sun’s rays reflected off the stone. A red glow shone on the snow covered mountainside at the feet of first monk, the high priest, returning from the morning prayer. The others, dressed in long, dark robes, walked in one long line behind him. The high priest pointed toward the escaping marauders. The whole order of priests, who learned horsemanship skills from the Ghurkas and knew the mountains far better than the marauders, gave quick chase.

Anton wrestled with the sack to keep the stone from reflecting the sun again. He and his men raced down the mountain side on foot, awkwardly carrying the gem. The evil monks nearly caught them at the edge of the port town where Desire remained docked. Anton led his men through alleys too narrow for horses, causing the priests to pursue them on foot. If Anton could only make it to the ship, he felt he could lose them.

The marauders carried the heavy sack toward the docks until they came to a narrow back street that ended in a sheer wall. They were trapped. As the priests raced toward them, Anton pounded the wall in frustration.

“The butterfly cursed me,” he said, slamming his fists on the cold stone.

Immediately, the stone wall parted. It led to a tavern filled with drunken sailors. Anton seized the arm of one of his comrades and pulled him through the opening. The rest of his men followed, carrying the stone. The evil monks raced toward them, sabers drawn. When the last of Anton’s men eeked throw the narrow opening, the stone immediately closed in the face of the high priest.

Struggling for breath in the smoke-filled tavern, Anton pressed through the thick crowd. The stench of beer and the crooning of a gypsy woman couldn’t hide the sailors’ drunken boasts.

“Bigger than two ships she was,” said one.

“Fire, in two mighty streams from its ugly head. . .”

“The sail turned to a sheet of flames. . .”

“The vessel, she flipped in its wake. . .”

A fouled-breathed sailor with a ragged beard grabbed Anton Bravado’s white fur and pulled his face close.

“It’s out there, waiting to crush any ship that crosses its part. Woe to the sailor who leaves the port tonight,” the ugly man said.

“It’s the curse of the butterfly,” Anton said, shaking himself from the man’s grip. He pushed through the front door to the street. Desire waited at the dock to the south. From the north, a band of angry priests ran toward him.

“Hoist the sails!” he yelled as he raced up the street, his men behind him with the gem. “Prepare to cast off!”

“We can’t sail tonight,” the first mate answered. “The monster’s waiting at the sea wall.”

“Damn the monster,” Anton yelled, boarding the ship. The monks approached, carrying torches and brandishing swords. “We sail now.”

“But, sir. …” the mate started, interrupted by an explosion that split the night air. From the mouth of the harbor, two pillars of fire rose from behind the sea wall and lit the night sky.

“Cast off!” Anton Bravado commanded, grabbing the first rope himself and raising a sail to catch the wind. “Desire can out-sail the monster. Raise the anchor and turn her toward the open sea.”

Down on the docks, the evil monks raced toward another ship docked in the harbor. Anton watched them slit the sleeping watchman’s throat and toss the first mate into the sea. The robed men with torches commandeered the neighboring vessel and prepared to set sail after Anton Bravado to regain the Kashmir ruby.

Anton searched the faces of his men, each reluctantly at his post. He followed their gazes to the eerie fire that rose from the sea. He watched them flinch at the sound of the enormous tail of the monster whacking the water into waves. In his heart, he felt cursed by the butterfly. With his words, he reminded them why they came.

“We are marauders!” he called to his crew. “Marauders take risks that other men fear. Have you forgotten that? Have your forgotten the sounds of poverty? the ache of an empty stomach? the cries of children in the night? Children whose dreams ride on the sweet aroma of freshly baked bread; children whose spirits are crushed by the sight of the food eaten by the rich man’s dog. If we fear this sea monster more than the eyes of hungry children, then we are not marauders. We are only thieves, no better than a boat load of monks who have traded their salvation for money.”

“This gem can give the gift of courage to the orphans of France. With the food and clothes it buys, we give them the might of kings. Woe to he who does not laugh at the sea monster’s fire, who does not dare thrust a sword in the beast’s side. All this to set a bound child free. This only we can do. We have the gem. We have the will. We have Desire. We have always been marauders for justice. Pirates for freedom. The strong arms that lift the weak, the mighty hands that stop injustice. We shall win this night and sail on til morning in victory.”

A roar rose from the men, interrupted finally by the growling voice of the first mate, still cloaked in his white yak suit.

“Capitain?” he called out. “I have a request.”

“Name it,” Anton Bravado answered. “But quickly. The enemy approaches.”

“Let me be the first to strike the beast,” he cried, drawing his gleaming sword from its scabbard.

“Do it,” Anton answered. “Rip his heart from his chest and save it for the orphans of France. Let every rich man know that those orphans are not forgotten. That on this day, the earth was moved for them. That marauders, poor and outnumbered, triumphed because the heavens smiled on them. To sea,” Anton shouted, leaping from the sail to the deck. “To France. To victory.”

With that, the men raced to their stations, catching every breath of wind in Desire’s sails and making headway where others would have failed. Yard by yard, they pulled ahead of the evil monks and closer to the beast who waited at the sea wall.

Anton Bravado knew the only way to outrun the beast was in circles, but the only way to distance himself from the monks was straight ahead. He planned to let the monster feed on the monks, and that failing, lose them both. If Desire could only reach the mouth of the African Canal, they had a chance.

As Desire approached the sea wall, flames soared from the beast’s nostrils and created a wind all their own. The men aboard Desire stripped to waist to stand the heat. Their bodies slick with sweat, they sailed in the rough waves created when the monster slapped its tail on the water with a deafening sound. The ship slipped past the harbor entrance and beast reared up from the water.

“Hard to port!” Anton Bravado commanded. The swiftness of the ship’s turns would have tossed lesser sailors into the churning dark waters. Sheets of flames threatened the sails. The marauders took turns, manning the sails and dousing them with water to stand the siege.

The monks slipped out of the bay almost effortlessly with the sea monster’s anger focused on Desire. When the twists and turns of the marauder’s ship proved too intricate for the beast, its anger exploded in one mighty whack of its tail. The wave it created not only sent Desire out to sea but the monks’ ship as well. The sea monster now raced after them both, every fierce breath from its nostrils propelling the sailors further out to sea with a strong, hot wind.

They raced for days that way. Desire and the monks just ahead of the monster as Anton Bravado steered a course for the African Canal. His men, constantly dousing the sails, grew weary from lack of sleep. Just as they reached the point of breaking, land rose on the horizon. Despite the fierce snakes, Anton felt they would be safe once they reached the canal waters. His main worry was the sunny day. The only wind he felt came from the white hot breath of the sea monster.

Desire easily threaded between the two sandy banks that formed the mouth of the canal. The monks, not such nimble sailors, bumbled in behind them. The monster followed them, whacking his tail so hard, it stirred up a great sand bar at the canal’s opening, sealing the entrance forever.

With little room to maneuver, the fiery sea monster soon closed in on the monks’ vessel. His breath turned their sails to blackened ash and the remnants floated away in dark flakes across the sands of the Sahara. The ship itself soon caught fire, sending some the monks jumping into swarms of black snakes that circled their vessels. They lived the length of an agonizing scream before the snakes fangs ran them through or they were swallowed whole. Others remained aboard, scrambling for deck space that was not burning. Most of them turned to running flames, the shape of man, diving to the snakes for a more merciful death.

Anton Bravado knew Desire could never outrun the beast on calm waters. A small bay lay hidden behind a sand dune not far ahead. His only hope would be to hide the ship there, hoping the sea monster would overlook them. Desire would have to remain perfectly still, an ideal target for the killer snakes to swarm and capsize.

As Anton Bravado slipped his ship behind the dune, he watched in horror at the last monk who remained alive. The high priest clung to the top of the yardarm as the sea monster examined the robed man with a huge, blood-shot eye. Its gaze caused the monk to lose his grip and fall. Before he met his crew’s fate, the sea monster snared part of the monk’s robe on the horn between his nostrils. The priest dangled for a moment, his garment tearing and promising freedom. A sudden stream of fire shot from the monster, frying the monk before he could scream. The beast swallowed what remained and turned toward Desire but she was gone.

The angry monster whacked his tail on the waters of the canal in frustration. Desire’s silk sails already covered the ship’s hull, blending it into the sand dunes. Swarms of huge black snakes with red diamonds patterns rose from the waters, their fangs exposed like pairs of curved swords. As the monster toward the ship, the motionless marauders held their breaths, their bellies pressed to the deck beneath the cloth. The snakes started their attack with a gentle rocking meant to grow in intensity until the ship capsized.

Anton lifted his head over the rail, peering from beneath the sail. He watched the sea monster’s anger mount as flames shot high in the air. The sound of the monster’s tail whacking the water cracked like thunder in Anton’s ears. He could no longer tell if the waves from the beast rocked the ship more than the swarming snakes. Only then did he notice the huge African butterfly, sitting like a rainbow on his shoulder.

“You,” he whispered to the stowaway. “I should have never let you aboard.”

‘But you did,” answered the butterfly. “And it saved my life.”

“You do me no good now. I would kill you now but it would attract the monster’s attention,” Anton said softly with frustration.

“I will help you, if you tell me how,” said the butterfly. “A promise is a promise.”

“A butterfly? Help me? You can help me by flying away. At least then, my last glimpse of this world would remind me of my mother’s painting.”

“That I can do,” said the butterfly, leaving. Anton watched it fly away, a bit of color between miles of white sand and an endless blue sky.

Another whack of the beast’s tail turned Anton’s attention back toward the canal. The beast started toward Desire, then stopped when the hull of the monks’ ship, covered by swarms of giant snakes, came sailing up the canal. It distracted the monster enough to cause the beast to swim toward it. At the same time, Anton thought he felt a gust of wind. It could be a storm, if there were such things as miracles. It could be just a gust of Sahara wind, no more constant than the whim of a woman.

“Raise the sails, men,” he stood and shouted. His men didn’t take much urging. They felt the slight breeze filling the sail before it unfurled completely.

Slowly, the tentative wind pushed Desire from the alcove behind the dune, inching her into the waterway. Not so much as whisper rose from the men’s lips. Desire moved as if passing through mud, the water thick with snakes. No longer camouflaged, she crawled into the wide waters of the canal, just as the sea monster bit the hull of the monks’ ship in two.

Desire’s sails shuttered in the inconsistent wind and she wobbled with the weight of the snakes pressing from one side, then another. On the horizon to the west, the long canal stretched farther than Anton could see, bordered on both sides by sand. He turned back to the mouth of the canal to see the beast focus on his lumbering ship.

Its mighty tail slapped the water’s surface, splashing out enough the water to create Lake Victoria. The fire that flew from its nostrils merged with the blazing sun. Anton looked away, searching the barren desert for hope. Above the sands, foretelling his fate, he saw the ashes from the sails of the monks’ ship. They seemed to grow more abundant as they rose in the direction the butterfly departed.

The sea monster rushed toward Desire but Anton Bravado watched the cloud continue to grow in size. It fell toward the earth, moving quickly toward the canal in a wide, wavy line that split the sky. A man’s scream brought Anton’s gaze back to the pitching ship. Three of his men held fast to a fourth, dangling from the deck. His foot hung just inches above a giant snake’s fangs before the men successfully pulled him back aboard.

A shadow fell over the deck and Anton turned back toward the sea monster. Though the sea monster reared up within striking distance, he realized the cloud overhead darkened his ship’s deck. It no longer appeared to be made of ash or moisture or any ordinary substance. A fluttering mass descended, composed of million of rainbows on the wings of millions of butterflies, sounding like the pumping of a giant bellows. Anton and his men stared in amazement as African butterflies lined the cross bars of every sail, their colorful wings creating a wind. It freed Desire from the swarming snakes and she sailed for the horizon. The snakes enveloped the sea monster and dragged it beneath the water’s surface, thrashing and snorting fire.

“Anton Bravado and the marauders brought the Kashmir ruby back to Paris,” Vartan Blazer said to the boy in the tree. With one hand, the storyteller reached up, and took the pistol from the boy. “The orphans never cried themselves to sleep again. As for Anton, he spent most of his time at Atlantis, counting his treasure. The bones of the sea monster formed the rim of Victoria Falls, where the waters of African canal ended. When Anton died many years later, they placed his body on Desire and sent her down the River Seine. As she headed to the sea, a huge butterfly, the color of a rainbow, perched itself on the highest sail of the ship as she disappeared beyond the horizon.”

“And that’s an adventure,” Vartan said, handing the pistol to the boy’s father before he walked away. The boy crawled down from the tree and stood beside his dad. The two of them and the rest of the crowd, watched Vartan leave, trailed by Ranger. Only the well-dressed stranger raced after him. He caught Vartan at the street corner, grabbing him by the arm.

“You must come home with me,” the stranger said. Vartan looked at the hand on his arm and the man released his grip. “You see, my son also wants an adventure. You must tell him the exact same story.”

“I can’t,” Vartan said without hesitation. Then he paused and turned back. “I could tell him another story.”

“Oh no,” the stranger insisted. “It must be that story.”

“Then I can’t tell him any story. To tell the same story over and over, it must be written down.”

“Then write it down, man. Good God, write it down.”

“But if I do, I’ll starve,” Vartan answered. “I must spend my time counting other men’s money or selling their wares. You’re an educated man. Surely you know that no one pays for fiction any more.”

“I will,” said the stranger quietly. He looked over his shoulder, worried at first that someone might overhear. Then losing all pride, he said, “I will pay you. I won’t have my son grow up without that.”

“Without what?” Vartan asked, though he already knew the answer. He’d known it since he first opened a library book and made sense of the squiggles on the page. Vartan almost told him it was imagination, nothing more than a memory recalled passionately. A man’s thoughts woven together and set sail in a vast sea with desire. He almost told him but his eye caught a yellow fedora, hanging from the branch of a cherry tree.

“I have a publishing house,” said the stranger. “We only publish non-fiction but maybe it’s time to try something different ¾ for my children’s sake.”

“You may never be rich,” Vartan warned, placing the hat on his head at a rakish angle.

“Ah, but the fun we’ll have,” the stranger answered.

When he spoke those words, a bloom opened on the branch of the tree. Soon the magnolias followed suit, and, a year later, Congress repealed the tax on the wind.

Copyright © 1997-2008 Luanne F. Oleas
All rights reserved.

Illustration Copyright © 1998-2008 Pamela Rice Hahn
All rights reserved.

Author bio:

“Luanne F. Oleas aka LadyLu is the author of Wild Dancing and other novels. In addition, she is an op on the #Authors Undernet chat channel (one of the Top 10 channels on the Undernet). The California writer’s work has appeared in Reader’s Digest and other publications.

The illustration is by Pamela Rice Hahn, Publisher and Editor in Chief of The Blue Rose Bouquet. You can visit her personal Web site to see more examples of her computer art and TShirtCollections.com to see some of her t-shirt and gift ideas designs. (According to Pam: “This is one of my first computer art illustrations. Luanne described what she wanted, I did it, and then she told me that ‘it was almost like talking to a police sketch artist.’ Then, I got additional validation for my work when my computer guru buddy Don asked me for the .bmp file so he could use it as his wallpaper!”)

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Maggie Bab Boon

This is the ball that started it all.

This is the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the parrot they call McCall
Who was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the feathered, right-sided wing

That flapped as the parrot they call McCall
Was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the bell that made a soft ding
As it fell from the shelf, being hit by the wing

That flapped as the parrot they call McCall
Was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the vase, a fragile, glass thing
That was hit by the bell that made a soft ding
As it fell from the shelf, being hit by the wing

That flapped as the parrot they call McCall
Was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the Mother who jumped from her swing
When she heard the crash of the fragile, glass thing
That was hit by the bell that made a soft ding
As it fell from the shelf, being hit by the wing

That flapped as the parrot they call McCall
Was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the tea, that was brought on a cart

And splashed as the Mother jumped from her swing
When she heard the crash of the fragile, glass thing
That was hit by the bell that made a soft ding
As it fell from the shelf, being hit by the wing

That flapped as the parrot they call McCall
Was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the lady who clutched at her heart
When her dress got wet from the tea on the cart

That splashed as the Mother jumped from her swing
When she heard the crash of the fragile, glass thing
That was hit by the bell that made a soft ding
As it fell from the shelf, being hit by the wing

That flapped as the parrot they call McCall
Was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the sister who did her own part
By patting the lady who clutched at her heart
When her dress got wet from the tea on the cart

That splashed as the Mother jumped from her swing
When she heard the crash of the fragile, glass thing
That was hit by the bell that made a soft ding
As it fell from the shelf, being hit by the wing

That flapped as the parrot they call McCall
Was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

This is the Father, older and smart
Who stared at the sister doing her part
By patting the lady who clutched at her heart
When her dress got wet from the tea on the cart

That splashed as the Mother jumped from her swing
When she heard the crash of the fragile, glass thing
That was hit by the bell that made a soft ding
As it fell from the shelf, being hit by the wing

That flapped as the parrot they call McCall
Was scared by the cat with her bed in the hall
Who ran from the baby, sweet and small
Who hit the ball that started it all.

The father stands staring, his hands in his hair
When he sees a ball roll, kind of slow, down the stair

And he thinks to himself that a ball on the stair
Could cause a commotion if left to stay there

“Why, one could get hurt, one might even fall”
So he walked and bent over and picked up the ball

And placed it back safe, by the cat in the hall.

Copyright © 1998-2008 Tim Boon
All rights reserved.

Authors’ 1998 bio:

“The authors of The Ball That Started It All are a father and daughter team. The 37-year-old father half is the administrator for a hospice agency in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. His other recently published works appeared in RN magazine in 1995 and 1998. The daughter is 11 years old and is in the 5th grade. The authors would love to hear from you! You can tell them what you thought of their story by sending an email to Tim Boon, the father half at TBOON02 [at] aol [dot] com. “

The Ball That Started It All is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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5. Couldn’t pass the postal exam, eh?

4. Will you puh-lease get that light out of my eyes???

3. That isn’t how you spell wreckless.

2. Excuse me! Did I ask for your opinion?

1. Here look! My gun’s bigger than yours!

Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Pamela K. Hahn (Pamela Rice Hahn)
Permission granted to forward this via email as long as
this entire copyright notice is attached.
The Chris White Top 5 List is Copyright (c) 1998 Chris White
and can be seen at http://www.topfive.com
This List is reprinted from the HUMOR section in the
The Blue Rose Bouquet at http://www.bluerosebouquet.com/
Reprinting this list for commercial purposes is forbidden
without the expressed written consent of the author.

Top 5 Things NOT to Say to a Cop is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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5. l’espirit de whore … a satisfied Charlie Sheen

4. coma tally view … the number of visitors to the patient in intensive care

3. moi cherie’s no more … the Arkansas pre-teen theme song

2. slurp du jour … an intern’s day at the office

1. a’la rode … an intern’s exceptional day at the office

Copyright (c) 1998-2007 Pamela K. Hahn (Pamela Rice Hahn)
Permission granted to forward this via email as long as
this entire copyright notice is attached.
The Chris White Top 5 List is Copyright (c) 1998 Chris White
and can be seen at http://www.topfive.com
This List is reprinted from the HUMOR section in the
The Blue Rose Bouquet at http://www.bluerosebouquet.com/
Reprinting this list for commercial purposes is forbidden
without the expressed written consent of the author.

Top 5 French Phrases is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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5. Jeus: the god of Florida fruit drinks

4. Pundora: goddess for those lacking the intelligence to come up with them

3. dildo: goddess of the loveless, mistress of the “no luck at the hunt”

2. batteri: dildo’s support group

1. HeHeHeHercules: god of laughter

Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Pamela K. Hahn (Pamela Rice Hahn)
Permission granted to forward this via email as long as
this entire copyright notice is attached.
The Chris White Top 5 List is Copyright (c) 1998 Chris White
and can be seen at http://www.topfive.com
This List is reprinted from the HUMOR section in the
The Blue Rose Bouquet at http://www.bluerosebouquet.com/
Reprinting this list for commercial purposes is forbidden
without the expressed written consent of the author.

Top 5 Alternative Gods of Mythology is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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This list was sent in as my first audition. I exceeded the 5 entries by a bit. Ended up it was already an actual topic in progress and one of mine was chosen the #1 Monica Lewinsky Film Title for the Chris White Top 5 List on February 3rd, 1998.

Bang the Bum Slowly

The Big Creep

ApplyHerLips Now

The Catch Her in the Fly

Pump Friction

Swamped Thing

The JawShank ZeDampChin

Face Jam

The Schlong Kiss Delight

The Wizard of Ooze

Happy Spillsmore

His Thing and I

Pet Shorty …or… Wet Shorty
(Paula Jones said in deposition he’s less than 5″ long, fully extended)

Chinny Chinny Bang Bang

and the #1 Monica Lewinsky Film Title on the Chris White Top 5 List on February 3rd, 1998 was/is:

Cleavage and Butt-Head Do America

Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Pamela K. Hahn (Pamela Rice Hahn)
Permission granted to forward this via email as long as
this entire copyright notice is attached.
The Chris White Top 5 List is Copyright (c) 1998 Chris White
and can be seen at http://www.topfive.com
This List is reprinted from the HUMOR section in the
The Blue Rose Bouquet at http://www.bluerosebouquet.com/
Reprinting this list for commercial purposes is forbidden
without the expressed written consent of the author.

Monica Lewinsky Film Titles is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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1. You’ll no longer bend over in public to pick up dropped change. Hell! You won’t bend over for anything smaller than a twenty.

2. Your stretch pants don’t.

3. You don’t think you’ll ever be able to forgive Blackwell for those unkind remarks about Omar the Tentmaker’s designing skills.

4. You decide a beard is the best way to camouflage a double chin. And, you’re female!

5.  Your T-shirts are now wide enough to emblazon MORE CUSHION FOR THE PUSHIN’ across the front
in bold, 3″ letters … on one line.

Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Pamela K. Hahn (Pamela Rice Hahn)
Permission granted to forward this via email as long as
this entire copyright notice is attached.
The Chris White Top 5 List is Copyright (c) 1998 Chris White
and can be seen at http://www.topfive.com
This List is reprinted from the HUMOR section in the
The Blue Rose Bouquet at http://www.bluerosebouquet.com/
Reprinting this list for commercial purposes is forbidden
without the expressed written consent of the author.

Top 5 Ways to Tell You Have Gained Weight is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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