The toughest Job you will ever Love

Ten years ago I boarded a night train leaving from Silistra, Bulgaria heading for Sofia, Bulgaria. I cried the whole 12 hour train ride I think. Cried for a city I have not been back to visit. Cried for the people I loved in that city. Cried for a dream achieved and finished. When I arrived on that very same train two years before I never imagined that I would become so attached, so changed, so loved. I was living the dream of many young Americans who hear the words of JFK, " Ask not what you country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." As a Peace Corps volunteer I was speaking a different language, living in a different culture and changing who I was. I learned that the world was an unjust place and that I was privileged. I learned that sometimes the littlest thing could bring a smile to your face. I learned what true friendship was and I learned that love can make the world brighter. Ten years ago I left my home and came home and that has made all the difference.

New Leaf

She promised herself this year she would turn over a new leaf. It was her New Year's resolution. But 2 minutes and 13 seconds into 2010 she was up to her same old tricks and a man was dead in the gutter because of her. She had not meant to do it, but he had grabbed her from behind and really she had no choice, no one grabbed her from behind. She went absolutely ballistic, pummeling the man with a strength and vengeance that none of her colleagues at the library would ever believe she was capable of, she was a librarian in children's books after all, she spent her days surrounded by children and picture books, but underneath her tweed skirt and sweater set beat the heart of a warrior. All of the witnesses agreed that the women who killed this man was at least six feet tall and stunningly beautiful, they were all sure. They disagreed on her hair color, some said vibrant red, others glistening black, all were sure she was wearing a leather skirt and thigh high boots. You see witnesses tend to see only what they want, so when the mild mannered mousy haired, five foot two librarian in the tweed skirt walked away from the scene of the crime shaking her head and muttering about a new leaf, no one paid attention.

Being Weird

She had skinned her knee again. It seemed that she always had a skinned knee, bruised elbow, scratched leg, or stubbed toe. She was klutzy and had never felt comfortable in her skin, ever, not for 12 years. Her parents said she would grow into her body and that everyone sometimes felt like they did not belong in their own skin. But she seriously believed that this feeling of hers was different then that. She really thought she did not belong in the body she now occupied. She could not describe it to anyone and had never tried for fear they would laugh at her. She got that enough and did not need anything else to make people think she was a freak. On the morning of her thirteenth birthday with a skinned knee she sat down for breakfast with her parents. They were acting weird but she did not dwell on it. All she could think about was what was going to happen at school and how she had to get up in front of her whole class and read her poem. She hated speaking in front of her class. So when her Mom cleared her throat and said she need to talk to her about something important, she was not really focusing on what she was saying. All she really noticed was the moving of her Mom’s lips and her nervous hand gestures. That was until her Mom slowly reached up to her hair line and pulled off her face. She gasped and watched in horror as her Dad also reached up and pulled off his face. Underneath was the most beautiful iridescent blue skin she had ever seen. She truly listened then and sat and took it all in, absorbing everything. Then she stood up and went slowly up to her room. What she learned was going to take some time to sort out. But first she had to see if it was true. She went to the mirror on her closet door and lifted up her hair. She had never really paid attention to the scar that ran along her hairline. Her parents had told her she had minor surgery when she was a baby, but apparently that was not true. Apparently what her parents meant when they said she had minor surgery was that they had created a human skin to cover her real skin so that she could live as a human. So she lifted her hair again and pulled her skin down and their beneath the human skin was the blue iridescent skin. It was lovely. She was lovely. Her eyes when seen with the human skin appeared plain and brown but with this blue skin they glowed a bright amber color. She was still adjusting to this revelation when her older brother burst through the door of her room. He started talking and everything gushed out about how their parents had told him on his thirteenth birthday and how it had taken him a while to adjust. She sank to the floor and just listened. Listened to his words flow over her. She started thinking about all her scrapes and bruises and how she had never felt as if she fit into this body and now she knew why. It was not her skin. Her skin was the iridescent blue that all her kind had in common. They had settled on earth three generations before; putting on their human costumes to blend in. Their planet had died over a hundred years ago and although most of her kind had settled on earth there were others who had settled on different planets in different solar systems. That evening as she looked out her window at all the stars shining brightly in the sky, a slow smile spread across her face. She fell asleep that night feeling comfortable for the first time in 13 years as the moon glistened on her bright blue skin.

Adventure of a lifetime

The instructions said to simply add water. So she filled the small glass jar with water and waited. She checked on it every few hours the first two days, then as the days became weeks she checked every few days. As the weeks became months she checked every few weeks and as those months added up and became years she simply forgot about the small glass jar and went on with her life. She grew up and went to high school, then college. She got a job she liked but did not love. She meet a man she liked but did not love. She liked the life she had carved for herself but she did not love it. She never complained and was grateful for a good steady life. But she did dream of far flung adventures with dashing men and fabulous clothes and exotic places. She dreamed of becoming a spy and seeking out all the worlds secrets She dreamed of being a doctor who traverses the Rainforest looking for its secret cures. She dreamed of speaking every language known to man. She held her dreams close to her and told no one of her desires. Until that day when she was reminded of the instructions she had followed years ago, "Just add water." The police came to her door that day asking questions, then the FBI showed up asking questions, then the CIA and Scotland Yard showed up asking more questions. She did not have the answers to their questions. She was confused. They took her away and put her in a small room by herself. They came again and asked the questions again, but this time she knew the answers, she even could answer in several languages. She did not know how she could do this but she could and slowly as they kept asking questions and she kept answering, she began to not just like her life but love it. What transpired after all the questions is a mystery because she left through a side door and no one has seen her since. Her parents keep mementos of her around the house to remind them that she did exist. One of the mementos her mother cherishes is the small glass jar that had once been filled with water by a little girl formulating dreams of the future, on the instruction tag it said, fill with water and all your dreams will come true.

Saturday Hawthorn

I can see things that others can not. I have know this from the time of my birth. I know that sounds unusual but it is true and I am unusual. There are stories told around the dinner table and to children as they go to bed. Stories about things that only come out at night. Stories about things that will take your soul with no remorse. Stories told by grandmothers with thick eastern European accents. Stories about a certain kind of person who can see these things while others can not. These stories frighten me for I know they are true. I was born on a Saturday to parents who are descendants of a dhapir. You are not from eastern Europe? You have not heard of this dhapir? Not many, in our thoroughly modern country have. My great great grandfather was the son of a drakus, a topyak,or do you prefer the word vampire. You were not aware that the vampire could have children, it is true, they can live among humans and have children with human women. When these children are born they have special powers to see those things that the rest can not, they have none of the bad traits of the vampire, but all the power. It is these dhapir that hunt the things that only come out at night. I am a descendant of two dampir and I hunt those who stalk the night. I am doubly blessed you see as I was born on a Saturday. In my ancestoral homeland it is often said those born on a Saturday can also see what is invisible. As you can imagine it is very difficult to live a normal teen-age life with boys, dates, school and friends. It is hard to explain why I have a backpack full of stakes made from the hawthorn tree and sharpened to point. It is hard to explain that I know Mr. Ganger ,the chemistry teacher, is really a demon and that tonight I will hunt him down and kill him. It is hard to explain that my sandwich is made with lamb meat killed by wolves because it keeps me strong. Oh well, no one ever said being sixteen was easy. Ah, look at the time, if you will excuse me now, it is time to go kill Mr. Ganger.

Born Under a Bad Moon

My grandmother always said I was born under a bad moon. Every time she visited me she would give me some sort of trinket to ward off the evil she said surrounded me. It shamed me but I did not have the strength to tell her I liked the evil. I liked the feel of it as it wrapped itself around me and made my heart pound with desire for all the things I knew were bad. The boys, the clothes, the drinks. My face would burn with shame every time I saw her and she clicked her tongue at me, but I never once stopped enjoying that feeling of bad. I never once thought about the pain I brought my family. I only ever thought of myself and now years later the shame of what I did still causes my face to flame and my hands to tremble.

The Junk

Every time she visited the house she made a beeline for the attic. It was full of the most beautiful junk you had every seen. She would play for hour upon hour up in that attic. Dressing up in old gowns long forgotten by time, playing with toys that had seen better decades, imaging a world of the past that only she could see. As she grew up the junk became less interesting being replaced by boys and make-up and shoes, lots and lots of shoes. It was not until later when the junk was gone ,the house that held it sold and the grandmother who had kept it long dead, that she remembered those long afternoons and longed for the junks return. She became a keen flea market and garage sell shopper going from place to place slowly find items that reminded her of the junk in that attic and slowly but surely as each new piece was acquired she had more junk then even that old attic had held and as she watched her own grandchild head right for the attic she knew that one day all this junk would be sold off piece by piece as history would invariably repeat itself, for the she would die and the little girl in the attic would grow up and discard this junk for boys, make-up and probably even shoes because she was her grandmothers, granddaughter after all.

Who now? Where now? When now?

She stood on the sidewalk outside her apartment and watched herself leave through the front door and head down the street. She followed herself down the street heading for the train. As she followed she took a closer look at herself. She was wearing the charcoal grey suit with the turquoise blouse, she knew that inside the large black tote bag were the dark grey pumps she always wore with that suit. She saw herself slow down to grab a paper on the corner like she did every morning of every day. Once they reached the train station and she started to ascend to the platform she stopped and watched herself reach the top. There was still time to make it before the train left the station. She hesitated as she watched herself get on the train and that is when she knew. She was not getting on that train. She had other things to do. So she took one last look at herself, smiled and headed in the other direction. Free of herself for the first time in years.

The first Kiss

When I spent Halloween in Transylvania I knew that it was going to be amazing. I decided that my costume had to be that of a vampire's victim. It was brilliant, everyone at the party thought it was the best costume ever for this location, the heart of vampire lore. The next morning I awoke groggy and disoriented, shuffling to the bathroom, I blamed the drinking from the night before, although I did not think I had over indulged. My head was pounding and when I looked into the mirror I was shocked to see that I appeared so white that I looked dead. As I pulled back my hair to wash my face, I saw the vibrant red bite marks on my neck that I had drawn on with a lip pencil. They were not even smeared and looked even redder then the night before. I reached up to rub them off and was horrified to feel the indents. These were not drawn on, these were real, what the hell happened last night at that party. As realization slowly slipped into my mind I heard my boyfriend open the bathroom door. All thoughts fled from my mind except for one, how good his blood smelled and I hoped he would not mind if I had a little taste.

A single thought

When she saw the ship slowly moving into the port she knew her freedom was over. She had married him in that spur of the moment movement that was sweeping across the country in the first years of the war. He had been funny and handsome and was leaving in the morning for the war front where he might possibly die. They had spent one night together, their wedding night and in the morning he was gone. She was not even sure she could really remember what he looked like. She had spent the last three years marveling at the freedom the wedding ring on her finger gave her. With a husband over seas fighting she was granted the freedom to live alone and work and spend as much time with her friends as she wanted. It was the first time in her life she had never had to report her whereabouts to anyone and she loved it. Every minute of it. Free, like the waves of the ocean which were bringing that freedom to an end.

He sat on his bunk as the waves of the ocean lapped at the sides of the ship that was slowly making its way into the harbor. He tried to drown out the voice in his head by listening to the slap of those waves against the ship, but it was no use. The voice kept repeating one word over and over and over again. That word was Idiot. He had been an idiot to marry a girl he had just met and knew nothing about the night before he left for war. But he had been sure he was going to die in that war and she had been funny and pretty. And now here he was. Stuck, trapped, and imprisoned in a marriage with a woman he did not know. As the waves drew the ship closer to shore he closed his eyes and tried not to think about the freedom he would lose when this ocean voyage ended.

They walk together side by side

The dog is old, the man is not. Despite the leash laws in our city no one seems to mind that his dog never wears one. The dog is so slow and crippled that no one fears him. The man is slow too, they have the same gait. I often wonder how the man was broken. War, car accident, always. I am embarrassed to ask. They wander our streets, this pair, slow and methodical, side by side, each step a torture. What will happen to the broken man when the dog is gone?

A Pirate's Life

In honor of talk like a Pirate Day!

She stood at the front of the ship as it moved swiftly through the water toward the other ship. She dressed like a man but no one would ever mistake her for one, with the long blond curls hanging down her back and her feminine curves accentuated by the tight breeches. As her ship pulled along side the french supply ship, she unsheathed her sword and lead her men in a vicious attack. She may have looked like a soft woman with her rounded checks and bright eyes but she was a pirate after all and soon the crew of the french ship surrendered to the Valkyrie and her men. She had grown fond of the nickname bestowed on her by a conquered ships crew many years ago. She felt like a Valkyrie on days like this where she and her crew celebrated another capture. She had not always been this wild and reckless pirate. A long time ago she had been another young women on the marriage mart attending balls in London. In that first season she was out and looking for a husband she quickly realized that the life of a docile wife married to a Peer of the realm was not the life for her, but with few choices open to a women she felt she had no choice. But then the most amazing thing happened, on a voyage to the colonies the next year to visit her sister her ship was captured by pirates and she was at their mercy. Instead of whimpering and crying at fate she decided that perhaps this was a good thing and quickly she not only won over her pirate captors but joined them, eventually earning her own ship and she never looked back. Now, years later she regretted nothing. She liked the freedom she had, she liked the sea, she liked her men. She was a happy women. She sat back in the chair sipping the delicious brandy they had taken from the french ship, watched her men celebrate and thought about the handsome young captain of the french ship in her hold, perhaps she should invite the captain to dinner to discuss his surrender.
Yo ho , ho, ho, she thought, a pirates life for me!

The Hunger

It came upon her so quickly these days. It gnawed at her belly until she grew so weak from it that she would have to stop her horse and lie down on her bedroll. She had been travelling for weeks without seeing another person so when she saw the town in the valley as she rode over the hill she was for a very brief moment happy, until the hunger returned. That is how it always was these days. Brief flashes of joy, happiness, and even peace and then the hunger would smash the joy right out of her. She knew that she had to finish this, finish what he had started and she would end. There was no other way. Until the hunger was gone she would never be able to live again. Never have peace. So she rode toward that town with a grim look on her face. When she walked into the saloon that night she knew that soon it would end. She sat at the bar ordered a whiskey and waited. Soon enough she heard what she needed. She ordered another whiskey, swallowed it in one gulp, grabbed her hat and walked out of the saloon. He was in the whore house at the end of town and tomorrow at noon he was going to die.

To read more of her story read: The barn
and Tired and sore

In the Dead of the Night

There was a single light glowing above the sink in the kitchen as she slowly pushed the back door open and slipped into the house. She began tip-toeing to the front of the house. She had made it to about the middle of the room before she heard the flick of the light switch and she was blinded by the flood of lights that filled the kitchen. He sat on the stool in the corner by the refrigerator. He was wearing his fire engine pajamas and looked like to the entire world the perfect image of the perfect little boy, but she knew better. She knew that in his small blond adorable frame he contained more evil then had ever existed anywhere else on earth and she regretted the errand she had had to run this night that put her in this position. She knew that he would use this to blackmail her into something terrible. As she stood there frozen in the middle of the kitchen and looked at the adorable blond child, a vicious smile spread across his face transforming the angelic child into the monster he was. She knew the moment he decided what her punishment would be and it was going to be bad, very bad. How long was she going to have to continue this charade and how was she ever going to rid the world of his evil. She was the only one who saw and knew and one day she was going to have to end it. When she looked back at the child his smile had slipped a little and she remembered to make her face the blank mask that was her only protection. He looked her up and down and then in his sweet high infant voice said, “You are in big trouble Mommy, you should never have left the house without telling me, this is what I need you to do…..”

Punk Rock Girl

She would sit for hours making the tapes. Sorting through her own tapes to find just the right songs. Painstakingly starting and stopping and recording those songs onto the blank tape, re-taping if she cut the song off too early. It was an art form back then in the time before computers, mp3 players and music on the Internet. She had been an artist. She crafted the most beautiful and outrageous music to ever be combined in one place. If you tracked the time she worked on making those tapes it would have added up to two years, three months and five days. That was then, now with a click of the mouse, what took her hours takes ten minutes and like the one hit wonder by the Buggles says “Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone too far, Oh-a-aho oh, Oh-a-aho oh.”

I never want to be an adult or once there were two, now there is one.

She sits in a chair on the front porch each evening watching everyone go by. She never smiles or says hello. it was the other one who was friendly. It was the other one who would greet you as you walked by asking about your day, making you smile. They would sit there for hours gossiping and laughing and enjoying the evening together. Once there were two chairs on that porch, now there is only one.

Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

The bouquet of flowers sat on the car seat where he had left them. He had stopped at the flower market on his way to the meeting. She was going to love them, twelve dozen pale pink roses. He was pretty sure she was the one he was going to marry. When the police walked in to the building with their guns drawn, he was not afraid. When they made the seven of them line up against the wall, he was not afraid. Not until the shooting started did he realize these were no policemen.

As the men dressed in police uniforms left the warehouse, one noticed the beautiful pale pink roses sitting in the car of one of the dead men. He reached in through the window and slowly withdrew the roses. “My girl is going to love these." he said.

Corn and Moonlight

When I was a teen-ager I dreamed of getting out of there. The dreams were filled with big cities, exciting jobs and fascinating people. I saw myself there in the gleaming city, dancing, working, loving and living the life I knew I was destined for. I did not see myself staying there in that town surrounded by corn, stifled by it, drowned among it, wasted by the corn. So it shocks me each time I pull off the express way to visit my parents, how it draws me in that corn; the smell of it, the sound of it, the look of it as the moonlight bounces off the glistening ears. It sometimes creeps into my dreams the way the city did before I lived in it, luring me back to that town I swore I would leave forever.

The Plan

He stood by the grave and admired the many flowers left by fans. It was a lovely site to behold. He was still amazed all these years later the reverence people had for him and his music. The fact that even after his death his name could still bring millions and millions of dollars was at times shocking. But he was happy that his family was taken care of because he had had to leave all those years ago and he felt bad about that. He felt bad that his daughter thought he was dead, but it had to be done. His life had been spiraling out of control for so long that the only way out was death. So he had planned it, everything down to the last detail. It had worked perfectly. Everyone thought he was dead and despite the occasional " I saw Elvis story” in the Weekly World News he had lived a quite life. None of those stories ever got close to the truth. Did people really think he would still look like Elvis? After his "death" he had lost weight and dyed his hair blond and gotten plastic surgery. He looked nothing like himself. His current wife and children had no idea he was anything more then Ted Fromby from Winnetka. IL, High School History Teacher and baseball coach. He was really proud of his team; they had made the State play-offs this year. He took one last look at the grave, turned away with a chuckle and headed back toward the front gate where his family waited.

Not all dreams are sweet

She saw the future in her dreams. When she was six she dreamed of her high school graduation and when she was nine she dreamed of her college days and what she would study. The day she turned twelve she dreamed of her future career and at sixteen she dreamed of her wedding day and saw the man she would marry. Her dreams continued to show the future, so she made no plans and let her dreams carry her along. She graduated from High School, went to college and got a job just like her dreams foretold. All her dreams had come true so far and so she waited for the rest, waited for the man, the wedding the children and the life she dreamed of and while she waited she failed to take notice that her life was passing her by. She awoke upon the morning of the day she had dreamed would be her wedding day with no groom and no dress and no wedding. She had let the dreams rule her life and as some times happens not all dreams come true. She made a decision that day, the decision to no longer rely on her dreams to build her life. She would make the decisions, screw those stupid dreams, she hated her job, regretted her career path and college major and that guy she had dreamed of was no prince charming and so as the rest of her life unfolded she no longer dreamed about life but lived it.