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 Vartan eyed his unpublished manuscripts, stacked in a hopeless pile in one corner of the sparsely furnished room.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!”)

The Pirate and the Butterfly is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Here on Earth
By Alice Hoffman

For those over 40 who still wonder about that one person from long ago and why it never worked out, Here on Earth lets you know. March Cooper returns to the rural Massachusetts town she left as a girl without her first love, who left her staring out an icy window for three years before she moved to California and married Richard Cooper.

It’s the funeral of her nanny, Judith Dale, that brings March back, carrying more emotional baggage than the red-eye express in the form of her rebellious, spike-haired 15- year-old daughter, Gwen, and an unrequited love for Hollis. In the author’s own unique style of poetic prose lays bare the tale of what happens when a fantasy love becomes a reality.

By the author’s own admission, Here on Earth is a darker novel than her others. In fact, in the middle of it, she put it aside and dashed off Practical Magic, just to get a break from the novel’s heaviness.

As the relationship evolves between March and Hollis, it becomes evident why he smelled of “some other scorching scent which March would later come to believe was anger.” And also, why it’s always a mistake to say, “Don’t you dare walk out that door.”

The surrealistic picture that Hoffman paints of reality comes from her magnification of the details. The dragonfly caught in your hair, the foxes disappearing and meeting in a circle in the depths of the woods, the horse that would kill a man but die for a teenage girl, and how March’s brother — the Coward — lives in the marshes, and, despite his drinking, was the only one who knew the truth from the beginning. For him, and the choice he makes, she says, “Do what you want, do what you will, do what you have to, do what you think you cannot.”

This tales lacks some of the magic and spirituality of her other novels. The depth of the subject doesn’t lend itself to “angels landing between your shoulders blades.” It strains the fabrics of the words that weave the story of love that wasn’t meant to be, and what occurs when two people decide to make it happen anyway.

Here on Earth is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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