A Memoir by C. Cimmone

Grief is a strange thing. It’s something you sit with, alone. It keeps you up at night, sifting through the darkness when the rest of the town is silent and sleeping. Grief hovers between you and the ceiling fan. Grief follows you down the hall and out your backdoor. Grief laughs when you look up at the night sky. It knows you are searching. Grief knows it owes you nothing. 

Grief does not owe apologies or explanations. Grief does not choose sides or favorites. It plays best on its own and cares not if it is criticized, condemned, or cursed. Grief lives on forever, long after you’re gone. Grief is not placed in a casket, unless it is nestled in the chest of the neatly-dressed deceased. 

The problem with grief is not that it is persistent and constant. Grief is not a threat, as it only exists once death has played Her part. Death operates unconditionally. Death can be captured. Death can be released. Death can be rationalized, medically proven, and clinically induced. Death and grief are autonomous and are not interchangeable, partners, or friends. Grief is superior to death because it outlives flowers, caskets, and memories. One may grieve long after the sound of someone’s voice has escaped their mind. It could be argued that grief outlives love. 

When I attempt to outrun grief, it finds me, reminds me, shakes me violently like a screaming child. It puts images in my mind of towering fire and scorched earth. Grief is violent and burns from within. Grief makes your skin crawl, your voice weak. Grief reminds you of the end. It reminds you of loss, of being lost, of searching.

Today I sit in the evening sun watching my son play baseball in a clover painted field. He is smiling and full of life. The coach is catching stray baseballs with a worn-out mitt. The oak trees are waving in the thick summer air as the boys yell at each other across bases. They are growing and learning. My son is happy. 

Yet somewhere out in the distance, off behind the rusty backstop and past the point where the clover stops blooming, I see a thin, bearded man. I see him grinning at me, almost taunting me for not winking back at him. And for a moment, I think I see someone I loved for so long, but I realize, with the new crack of sunlight, it is not the man I loved at all…it is grief.

*    *    *

C. Cimmone is an editor and poet from Texas who fantasizes about waking up in Vermont. Her most recent book of poetry, Wasted Days, is available from Anxiety Press.

Creative Non-fiction by Lisa Brodsky

The text felt heavier than its few words should allow.

Kate: Please call me when you can. 

Then the follow-up.

Kate: I have a question to ask you, and I’d rather not put it in a text. 

It snagged my thoughts and wouldn’t let go. What could she possibly want to ask?
Something about our weekend trip up north, I assumed. But what required a phone call, not a message? What needed to pass through the air between voices?

I called as soon as I could.
“What’s up? Is everything okay?” I asked, my tone a shade too sharp.

“I just wanted to ask if it’s okay if Jon comes with us this weekend.” Her words were quiet, edged with hesitation, as though the request might tip something fragile.

“Of course,” I said, without pause.

“Well, I thought I’d ask, just in case it felt… strange for you.”

“No worries. I’ll make room for him in the back. Safer that way, and he can be buckled in.”

“Thanks,” she murmured. “We’ll need to stop somewhere along the way… maybe a beach?”

When I picked her up, she moved slowly, guiding Jon to the rear seat with a care that felt ceremonial. Her hands lingered in each adjustment, tucking, securing, as though she were protecting something from more than just the bumps in the road.

From the first mile north, I felt his presence behind me—quiet, steady, watchful. Every so often, I glanced in the mirror, expecting to see his face, but each time, he was just out of view.

As we drove north, the sky darkened in slow degrees. Pine branches swayed like they were whispering to themselves. Jon was quiet, but I could feel him, like a low vibration in the chest, like the way you can tell someone is standing behind you without hearing them.

Kate’s eyes stayed on the scenery, as though she could memorize every mile. When the lake finally appeared, steel blue under a restless wind, her face brightened. “Here,” she said, her voice almost breaking. “This looks perfect.”

The three of us walked together to the water’s edge. The shore was scattered with smooth stones, the air carrying the smell of cold metal and rain. 

Kate stopped a few feet from the water’s edge, the wind tugging at her sleeves, the hem of her jacket snapping lightly against her legs. The lake was restless—small, cold waves working themselves onto the sand and retreating again, like they were deciding whether to take or to give. She sat close to him, head bent, her lips moving in words I couldn’t quite catch. For a moment, her voice seemed to lift and answer itself, as though another tongue had joined the conversation. 

She lowered herself beside him, knees folding into the damp sand, one hand resting on what she’d carried all this way. Her head tilted toward him as if to catch his voice. From where I stood, it looked like they were speaking in a language made only for the two of them—a rhythm of pauses, murmurs, and silences shaped by the wind.

The air around them seemed heavier than where I stood, as if the shoreline itself was leaning in to listen. The gulls had gone quiet, their calls replaced by the hiss of water folding over itself. My eyes kept catching small movements—her hair lifting, her fingers caressing what she held in her hands, the faint shift in her shoulders as if someone unseen had touched her.

At one point, she reached down and traced something in the sand with her fingertip, an outline I couldn’t quite make out before the wind swept it away. Her breath caught, and I saw her tilt her face toward the horizon as though asking for permission.

A tear gathered at her chin, fell to the sand, darkening it like a tiny spill of ink. She opened what she’d been carrying, carefully, reverently, and let the wind lift its contents toward the waves.

The lake took him gently, the ashes vanishing into its endless surface, his presence folding into water and air. Kate’s shoulders eased, but the space behind me, even on the drive home, felt full—as if Jon still traveled with us, no longer needing the seatbelt.

*   *   *

Lisa Brodsky holds a Master of Public Health and is completing her MFA in Creative Writing at Hamline University. She was a two-time winner of the Patsy Lea Core Awards for poetry. She has numerous published poems in several literary journals, including Otherwise Engaged, 2022, The Talking Stick, and The MockingOwl Roost. Her creative nonfiction stories include “Legacies” in The Tower 2023, “A Bushel and a Peck” in Memoirist, and “Tales from a Broken Crypt” in Otherwise Engaged, 2024.

 By Joe Del Castillo

Sue dumped the paper dishes, cups, and food scraps into the trash can. “I’d say we threw a pretty good party.”     

“I think so too,” Pete replied. “Especially considering it’s our first time hosting 40 people.” He collected the plastic chairs, four at a time, and stacked them in a corner beneath the back window. “We had great luck. We got a soft breeze, enough to clear out the bugs, and the harvest moon provided the perfect accent to the evening.”

Sue laughed. “Are you taking credit for the harvest moon being early this year?”

“I’d like to, but no one would believe me.” Pete placed the bottles and cans into the recycle bins. “You know, we did blow the budget for September. We’ll need to cut back in October to balance things out.”

Sue raised her hand. “Don’t bring that up again. We anticipated overspending when we decided to do an open house.”

Together, they folded several tables and carried them into the garage.

“What about those chairs?” she asked.

A short distance from the back fence, two chairs bordered a fire pit, now a pile of smoky ashes. Pete uncapped a bottle of beer. “I think we should reward ourselves with a nightcap.” 

He turned off the yard lights. Sue poured herself some white wine. They took their seats and faced the rear of their house. Taking a sip, she became quiet. “Pete, what you said about great luck. Are we lucky?”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. People like to say that luck favors the prepared. But beyond good planning for tonight—I mean—we’ve been fortunate—a good neighborhood, good friends, two terrific kids.”

“I know,” he said. “I suppose we have no control over that.”

“Who knows what will happen when they become teens.”

“They’ll be fine,” Pete commented. “Don’t start worrying about what will be.”

“Speaking of luck, look at Stella, our babysitter. What a great role model. She’s so mature for a 19-year-old, and our kids love her. I’d be happy if they turned out like her.”

Pete nodded. “It sure helps that she lives next door—no having to drive a sitter home. But I am surprised that Stella showed up tonight since we didn’t need her. Everyone here was our age or older.”

“Lower your voice,” Sue whispered. “Her windows are open.” The homes on their block were close, only their single-car driveways separated them. “I know why Stella came over. She saw Ginny Carson was here, and wanted to chat with her.”

“Why?”

“Stella’s confided in me that she’s crazy about Ginny’s son, Adam.”

Pete laughed. “So she wants to get to him by schmoozing with the mom?”

“Don’t make fun. She’s really stuck on him.”

“Is Adam interested?”

“I think so. He gets quiet when he’s near her. And he gazes at her when she turns away.” 

Pete looked up at the moon. “You could say he gets moony. He’s a nice kid. Maybe they’ll get lucky like us.”     

“I hope so. I’d hate to see her get hurt.”

“Sue, I thought the Aspens were avoiding each other.” 

“I noticed that they stayed apart all evening, too. Janie Bablee is positive that the two of them are having issues, but she doesn’t know why.” 

“Janie will probably create a story .”

“Stop it. But what happens if they split up?” Sue drank more wine. “How do you handle friendships with both?”

“Forget it. I’m sure they just had a bad day.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said. “Otherwise, everything went smoothly. Even Mr. Janus looked like he had a good time.”

“Sue, you lower your voice. His window is open too. He could hear us.”

“It’s past midnight. His lights are out. He’s got to be asleep.”

“Anyway, I’m glad he came over,” Pete observed. “I think it’s the first time he’s socialized with the neighbors since his wife passed.”

“That’s understandable. It must be tough for him. You know, until he mentioned it tonight, 

I never knew he and his wife hosted parties like this back in their day.”

“Really?” Pete stared at the dying sparks in the pit. “I’d like to think that, in some small way, we made him feel good doing this get-together, that he could be part of it.” 

He got up and took another beer out of the cooler, but before sitting, he said, “I know you don’t want to keep hearing me on this, but we’ll need to cut back in October to balance the money spent tonight.” 

“Not so loud.” With her wine glass, she motioned to the neighbors’ houses. “Pete, it was worth it. Years from now, we’ll recall this evening fondly and never think about what it cost.”

He sat back down across from her, the fire pit between them. He followed the fading smoke trail as it billowed straight up and dissipated.

She followed his gaze. “It’s such a beautiful moon.” 

“Well, here we are. How about I put on the Neil Young song, “Harvest Moon”? And we dance to it? It’s the perfect time.”

He took his phone, tapped the connection, and played the song softly on the nearby speaker. They rose and danced slowly on the grass, circling the chairs and fire pit.

“Think anyone can see us?” she asked.

“Nah. All our lights are out. There’s just the moon.”

But two people did watch. 

Mr. Janus, in the house on the right, and his room dark, gently pulled back the curtain from his second-floor window. From the house on the left, Stella, also in her bedroom and with the lights off, parted her drapes just enough to observe the dancing couple.

She yearned that one day she and Adam could be like Pete and Sue. While in the other house, the widower bent his head down and, with his hands, covered his eyes.

*   *   *

The writer lives on Long Island, New York and is a member of the Long Island Writers Guild. He has been published in New Pop Lit, Home Planet News and October Hill. He thanks you for your consideration.

 ___

By Catarina Delgado

We’ve been here for a while, inches away from each other, pretending the sun is nothing but a dream. Your hand rests on my waist as our breathing floats in the air, touching the walls with the same softness as the moment we shared the previous night. We’ve been loving in silence, feeling the unimaginable, accepting the eternal nature of an emotion and the fleeting moment of closeness. Shy sunlight enters the room, through the small window in the corner, painting a section of the floor in gold. I imagine the warmth of the sun on my skin, the same feeling your breathing gives me. I never asked for this calmness, but you kindly let me feel it. My hand touches your hair but you remain quiet, overwhelmed by a simple dream. We have always appreciated our small moments of connection as if our lives depend on the balance between affection and attention. 

The clock on the opposite wall tells me it’s time to go home, but I don’t want to. It has been years since we met. Yet, I feel everything. I feel it all. 

I know you don’t.

The sky changes color. Your eyes meet mine. Curly hair falls on my face and you softly tuck it behind my ear. We smile. 

You look beautiful in the mornings, you say. 

I realize our youth is a memory and the present is a fleeting reality. Every single wrinkle begs to be acknowledged, but I refuse to give them importance. In my mind, you’re the same boy I met at University, skipping classes to write poems in a lonely café. You used to take every chance in life to write a verse in your little notebook, lost in thought, focusing on the way a word sounds and the meaning behind an abstract feeling. What we feel is a reflection of the past. It’s temporary. Still, I can’t help but imagine what could’ve been. 

You pull me closer, putting my pieces back together. 

I’ve always loved you, I say. 

You remain quiet. I know you don’t feel what I feel. I learned that many years ago. But I stay here for you. Always will. 

It’s okay, I add. Just let the words float above us. They will either find a place to rest or they’ll disappear completely. Either way, you’re safe. Let the words find their landing zone. It’s not up to you to decide the place. 

You pull me even closer than before. Our skin touches, and I hear the rain. I can feel you thinking, wondering, doubting. The rain accompanies our quiet conversation as if the world was less important than our existence. It’s okay if I never see you again.

What we had, as fleeting as it was, meant something to me. It meant something to you too, even if you can’t admit it. Your eyes fall to my lips. I let you kiss me. We pretend nothing’s wrong. If you need me, call me again. I’ll never pretend not to know you. 

I have to go, I say. 

You don’t stop me. 

I get up, get dressed, and leave. It will always be like this, a slight hum to the sky, a quiet understanding of our ephemeral nature. Cafés open. The smell of freshly baked bread and morning coffee flows through the streets of our known city. 

I remember your hand on my waist and your sleepy eyes; the sun entering the room and the line of gold on the floor; your deep voice disrupting the silent room. I realize every detail  matters. I’ll always remember you, even if you choose to forget me. That possibility loses significance as time moves on. I’ve always loved you in silence and let our bodies talk. I tell myself nothing is eternal, but I have a faint idea that our connection will survive time itself. 

The sun hits my eyes. This is the truth behind our story: a burn we like to revisit. It is the only warmth we know. 

*   *   *

Catarina Delgado is a writer from Setúbal, Portugal. Her work appears in Eufeme Literary Magazine, NOVA em folha journal, Pigeon Review, Impostor Literary Journal, Wildscape Literary Journal, Eunoia Review, and Bright Flash Literary.  You can find her on Instagram: @catarina_delgado0

 

By Joan Potter

My cousin – I’ll call her Betsy – sends an email saying she’d love to see me. It’s been two years; she lives an hour and a half away. But, she adds, “I’m afraid we will have to wait for a bit to invite you to our home.”

The we includes her husband, whom I’ll name Nick. They used to invite my sons and me for lunch every summer. On our last visit, it was announced that Nick had prepared the meal. It included a bowl of something, possibly chicken, in a bright orange sauce. While serving himself, my son Jonathan dropped a bit of sauce on the tablecloth. 

“There’s turmeric in that,” Nick observed. “It will never come out.” I guess it didn’t, which might account for the two-year silence.

In her email, Betsy suggests that they might be able to see me in early November or early December “depending how we all are.” It’s now the end of July. She and Nick have a busy schedule; she thoughtfully tells me every detail:

Last fall they took a boat and bike trip to Provence. In June they returned home from a sail and bike trip along the coast of Sweden and Denmark. They spent July on Fire Island with friends and family. Home for the month of August. (Maybe she shouldn’t have told me that, since we won’t be invited for lunch.) Back on Fire Island in September. Away for the month of October.

“Anyway,” she closes, “I hope you are doing well and your family too.”

 I have to come up with a reply. Possibly something like, “Might see you in December if I’m not snowbound.”

*   *    *

Joan Potter’s nonfiction has appeared in anthologies and literary journals, including The Bluebird Word, New Croton Review, The RavensPerch, Persimmon Tree, Airplane Reading, Bright Flash Literary Review, and others. She is the author or coauthor of several nonfiction books. The most recent is the collaborative memoir “Still Here Thinking of You: A Second Chance With Our Mothers.”

 

 

 

By Hannah Janicke

There was a little girl named Lana.

She was bright, curious, and kind.

Her parents were first responders.
They told her, Never wear red.

They had seen too much
people arrested in red,
people dying in red,
families ruined because of red.

So they obsessed over it.
Every dinner, every story ended with the same warning:
Red will ruin you.

Lana, curious as ever, began to wonder.
She read about red in secret,
dreamed of it at night.

One day she came home
with a red bracelet hidden under her sleeve.

Her mother saw it,
ripped it from her wrist.
Beads flew across the floor like drops of blood.
She made Lana pick them up one by one.
She screamed until her face turned red
but never noticed.

Now Lana burned to know more.

By junior year, she found parties
where boys let her wear red.
She slipped it off before coming home,
but inside, she glowed scarlet.

Her father told her about a girl who died in red.
But Lana wasn’t listening anymore.
She was busy planning how to find more.

What could have been a phase became an obsession.
How to wear red and never get caught.
Where to buy it.
Who to trust.

When her parents noticed the look in her eyes,
they sent her away —
to a place where they chained her to a bed,
stripped her of color,
and injected her with a poison to get the red out of her.

They told her stories of people who died in red
while others bled quietly on bathroom floors
because they couldn’t stop.

When Lana came home,
she wasn’t cured.
Now, everywhere she looked,
all she could see was red.

  *   *   *

Hannah Janicke is an artist, writer, and modern-day mystic. She challenges others to rise to their souls’ highest purpose and seek truth, no matter where it may lead them. With authenticity, she captures the raw pain of the physical world and brings it to life through relatable archetypes, inviting readers to explore their own transformative journeys.

Creative Nonfiction By Tatiana Chaterji

Before, I didn’t know what a traumatic brain injury was. My tongue had not curled the letters T-B-I together, shaping the sound of nightmare. I had not heard the clipping of staples from a scalp fused after it was split.  To release pressure, they said, removing the right cranial bone flap. Not conceived of the skull as giving pressure, a living organism of its own, a piece of it stored in a freezer for months after being removed in the dead of night /attempted murder / vehicular assault under a blanket of fog, this city, these hidden stars. Never concerned myself with science or medicine or the mechanics of survival, the filaments of me un-breaking, encased as they were in a thick clay from where I stood young and forceful. Standing or walking or sitting because I wanted to /will /full /bold joy stubborn. Had not needed to wait for the “all clear” discharge orders that released me to a world of indifference. 

Before, I didn’t know life without its scents, its tastes. That the olfactory nerve stretches behind the eyes vulnerable to bruising or severing from an impact to the head, that you won’t know until you know, an extended game of dice that ultimately rolled “no permanent damage: you will smell again but with loss /unfamiliar /associating jasmine for coffee revulsion to orange comfort in cinnamon.” 

Before, I had not been the target of any physical or lasting harm. Had not thought that “victim” or “survivor” would ever describe me. Had not organized a vigil for rape survivors as I did while unconscious, dreaming /waking up to pelvic bruises /believing I was one of them. 

The brain injury bisected my life until I realized it was one in a string of paper cuts that stop hurting, eventually. That there will be other moments that change me. That there are many ways to slice a life. 

When I pull her to my chest, a sticky slimy worm. Six pounds four ounces eyes closed mewling to find her place on my chest, for the first time my chin against the wet mess of hair. 

When he carries me over the threshold into our suite at the Wise Owl hotel in South Kolkata. Garlands of sweet jasmine adorn my hair and my henna-painted arms drip with gold. 

When the drama therapist asks the group to simulate the attack, rushing towards me so I can do what I wished I had done: run away. It returns, my power, and I own what’s mine, fingertips throbbing with the life they can grasp. Sirens through the dark /machines beeping into a week of unconsciousness / awaking to wonder and madness, one toe at suicide’s brink /recovering in this outpatient treatment program for depression and anxiety. All of it, here, the breath and meat and sky. 

When I walk through the gates of San Quentin State Prison for the first time, I shudder at the cold heavy clank /permanence /at my back. The man in front of me breathes nervously in his starched blue uniform, gently meeting my eyes to say: “I’ve never met a real victim before. Thank you for coming.” He is, of course, a crime victim, but also an offender, and there isn’t room to be both in this place. I am here for the penultimate session of the Victim Offender Education Group, where the men have met for over a year now each week to learn empathy and build rigorous self-reflection /muscles to take accountability. They are ready to present their crime impact statements and to listen to a panel of survivors. We are all surrogates: none of us directly harmed or were harmed by each other. 

This, then, is the greatest innocence, the widest gulf I’ve crossed. Before sitting with men who have killed, who have touched this threshold, this fever-wound of life and God and pain, my eyes were full of dew. I was blind to the logics of violence, the way the toxins seep under and you merge with its poison. That you become dehumanized, brutal, a mentality of war /the hurt echoing at a different pitch /copper pebbles in an empty cave. 

Before, I sat alone in confusion, untangling the threads of my trauma with what I knew from a peaceful life of privilege. In that first circle at San Quentin, and every subsequent circle, I uncloak this ache. Hear from men who explain the numbness /danger in every corner, under the shadow of each day. I let them hold my story, share its load, and listen to theirs, my witness-body lifting off bits of the weight they carry. I welcome insights previously unimaginable, receive apologies I didn’t know I needed. 

It’s as if the lights switch on, all at once a brightness. The dialogue melts the isolation of my suffering, its icy blanket of shame, allowing me to see what had been there all along. Not monster, a human did this to me, broken, alone – and suddenly, I have permission to heal. 

For ten days, baby birds remain in the nest their mother has built. I spent ten days in a coma, from within the protective circle my family had drawn around me for the entirety of my two plus decades on earth. Infant wind-boned creature before flight, twenty-four years collapsed to ten days in the coma nest so I could bear-free the weight of the universe. 

Soaring /my mind at ease, a fresh page appears, the dotted line of life’s flash points waiting to blink on /forward /cuts and salves. 

                                                                   *   *   *

Living with a traumatic brain injury from community violence and grieving the loss of too many students to the same, Tatiana Chaterji writes to set free the cycles of healing we need for freedom. She is an emerging writer, mother of two small children, conflict worker, educator, restorative justice practitioner and theater-based healer based on Ohlone land in Oakland, CA. Her essays and poems are featured in Seventh Wave, Indianapolis Review, Rise Up Review, The Rush, Panorama, and Voicemail Poems and forthcoming in Cherry Tree. Learn more at http://www.tatianachaterji.com.

By Norma Hart

You’ll know the feeling. You go to bed and you’re tired and maybe relaxed too. When you get into the bed and under the duvet, you sort of melt into the mattress and the pillow. It’s a great feeling – the bed is all cotton wool and clouds. It takes maybe thirty seconds and you’re drifting off to where you need to be. Asleep. 

That’s when the first stupid question pops into your head. Who was it directed The Godfather? You don’t remember, turn over and drift again but don’t quite land. Was Godfather, Marlon Brando’s best movie? The little toe on your left foot itches so you use your right foot to scratch it. No, On the Waterfront. Definitely. Or maybe A Streetcar Named Desire? Now you’re a touch rattled because you aren’t asleep. Maybe if you turn the pillow over? Streetcars. Where do you mostly see them? The little toe itches again. San Francisco, in films. Loads of car chases and Clint Eastwood. Great actor, Clint. And Director come to think. Wish I could stop thinking. You think.

You determine not to think anymore. Suddenly you realize you’re drifting again. Drifters. No, not drifters, Grifters. Like in The Sting. Paul Newman – now he could act. Redford too. What was the other film? Oh yes, Butch Cassidy. Brilliant that. They were mates. Not just in the film either. James Cagney, he was in a film with Pat O’Brien. Angels With Dirty Faces. Cracker that. 1938. They were best mates too. The little toe itches but worse than before. Loads of films about Angels. David Niven in The Bishops Wife. That was one. People watch that every Christmas. Without fail. You turn over and tell yourself sleep! Even though instructions don’t work you say it anyway. You try but can’t remember the name of that film your mother watches every Christmas. She must know it has nothing to do with Christmas. What was it? Now you’re wide awake and get out of bed to find your Greatest Movie book. Sleepless in Seattle. Why the hell did she watch that? Anyway, bugger Seattle. Sleepless isn’t there, it’s sodding here. 

*   *   *

Norma Hart is a retired university lecturer with a background in the social sciences. Hallmarks of her work include eccentric characters; village life; and family lore. She prefers wit over cleverness and endings over beginnings.

By Jon Krampner

Ted Loden had come through again.

Bill Reichert had tried everything, to no avail. He wanted – he needed – to find out why Flynn Ferrari had been fired from ”Gallants Abroad,” Cosmopolitan Global’s 1941 big-budget, all-star film. The trade press of the day was mum, with both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter printing the studio boilerplate, ”By mutual agreement, Mr. Ferrari and Cosmopolitan Global Studios have decided to part ways on this project.”

Ferrari was well-known in Hollywood for his copious drinking, rich extramarital sex life and erratic behavior that included an episode in which he crashed a reception for the German consul at the Beverly Hills Hotel, climbed up a clerestory window at the rear of the ballroom, grabbed the drapery, emitted a Tarzan-like yell (he had, after all, starred in 1937’s “Tarzan’s Revenge”), cried out “Vive Le France!” and swung across the ballroom, landing on the head table where his feet displaced the consomme of the German consul’s wife from the bone china bowl where it properly belonged onto her elegant chiffon gown.

Historical accounts suggested that one of these Ferrari characteristics was involved in his dismissal, but Reichert, while unable to say why, suspected something else. But he had no proof, and if he was going to get a good advance for his Ferrari biography, which he needed to pay for his wife’s foot surgery, he’d need more than a hunch.

At midnight on October 30, Reichert was woken from his troubled sleep by the landline on his nightstand.  He drowsily reached out for the phone, knocking it to the floor and, when he reached down to retrieve it, almost falling out of bed.

It was Ted Loden.

“Trick or treat!” Loden called out with his customarily boyish enthusiasm. “I’m not calling too late, am I?”

Ordinarily, Reichert would have said “Yes, mofo,” but he had a soft spot for Loden, the film archivist at the University of New York with an uncanny ability to navigate the library’s extensive film archives and a willingness to go the extra mile to help researchers.

“Who is it, dear?” Reichert’s wife asked.

“It’s Ted from the library,” he said drowsily. “Go back to sleep.” Then he turned back to the receiver in his hand.

“What’s up, Ted?”

“I’m sorry to bother you so late,” Loden said, “but I knew you’d want to hear this!”

“Ted, could you speak up a little?” Reichert said. “You sound really far away.”

“Is this any better?”

“Not really, but what’s on your mind?”

“I found the key to the Flynn Ferrari firing.”

And just like that, Reichert’s sleep-addled brain snapped to attention.

“You found what? Where? How? What?” The questions tumbled over each other like movie patrons rushing to escape a burning theater. 

In a feat of archival derring-do comparable to the elaborately choreographed sword duels of “Gallants Abroad,” Loden had solved the mystery of Ferrari’s firing. His muted voice said there was a 1941 memo from Cosmopolitan Global’s vice president of finance to its president. The president’s wife was a spiritualist and had attended a séance where someone pulled out a Ouija Board.

The board delivered the message, “Mercedes beats Ferrari.” Most of the participants thought it had to do with the Grand Prix, but the studio president’s wife was convinced it meant a German actor should replace Flynn Ferrari in “Gallants Abroad.” And just like that, Ferrari was out and Otto von Schtrumpledorf was in, launching his 20-year career as an action film star, while Ferrari began his long, sad decline.

The vice president for finance was livid – the studio was on the hook for Ferrari’s considerable salary, but the president, not wanting to get crosswise of his wife, said his decision was final.

“Wait a second,” Reichert. “I’ve gone through all the files for both “Gallants” and Ferrari and I didn’t see anything like that. Where was it?”

“This is where it gets a little weird,” Loden said. “In the file for “The Golden Spike.”

But Ferrari hadn’t appeared in “The Golden Spike,” CG’s historical drama about the building of the transcontinental railroad, or even been considered for it.

  “Why the hell would it be there?” Reichert asked.

“Here’s what I think,” Loden said. “The VP for finance knew the studio president was embarrassed about his wife’s spiritualism costing the studio. He also knew the prez would comb the Ferrari and “Gallants” files and remove anything reflecting badly on her. But he wouldn’t look where it shouldn’t be.”

“But why ‘The Golden Spike’?”

“This is just my guess,” Loden said. “But it cost the studio a lot of gold when they spiked Ferrari. The VP for finance probably hoped some researcher would make that connection. And now you have.”

“I haven’t, Ted,” Reichert said, “you have.” It was just like Ted Loden, who would suggest arcane sources to Reichert he hadn’t even considered and who performed thousands of seemingly minor but indispensable tasks that made Reichert’s – and other authors’ – books better than they otherwise would  be to let Reichert take credit for his discovery. A legend among archivists and authors, Loden’s East Village studio was crammed floor to ceiling with books, magazines and film history ephemera. He had no known personal life beyond doting on his nieces and nephews; film history and helping people to it was everything to him.

“Ted, I can’t thank you enough,” Reichert said, trying not to hyperventilate. “Where’s the memo?”

“In Box 12 of the “Golden Spike” files,” Loden said. “File 58.”

“You’re a genius,” Reichert told Loden, not for the first time.

“Just doing my job,” Loden replied. Normally, he’d say “You owe me lunch” and sign off with “See you later, alligator,” but the line went dead, leaving Reichert to thank the dial tone. He jotted down, “G. Spike, B 12, F 58” on a notepad on the nightstand, calmed down, and went back to sleep.

On Halloween day, Reichert walked from the rent-controlled Park Slope apartment he and his wife had shared since before Park Slope became hip over to Grand Army Plaza, where he caught the 2 train to Chambers Street. There, as always, he switched to the C to West Fourth, then walked through Washington Square Park to the UNY Cinema Library.

To his surprise, Ted wasn’t on the desk; a substitute librarian was. She said she’d been called in just that morning. Reichert filled out the paperwork, she brought him Box 12 of the “Golden Spike” files and let him into the room where archival researchers pored over their materials.

And there it was.

Sandwiched between two daily shooting reports for “The Golden Spike” was the March 17, 1941 memo from Louis Tempelman, Cosmopolitan Global’s vice president for finance, to studio president Mayer Bronstein.

“Mayer,” it began, “my wife also has eccentric hobbies, but we’ll have to pay Ferrari half a million even if we don’t use him in “Gallants.” And to not use him because some nut jobs think they can send and receive Western Unions from the Great Beyond is not in the best interests of…”

Ted Loden had nailed it. Reichert would get the advance he needed and his wife would no longer feel pain with every step she took. He looked up and saw the substitute was no longer on the desk; the chief librarian was. He went over to ask for Ted. She looked at Reichert oddly.

“You can’t talk with Ted,” she said. “He died of a heart attack last night.”

“But we talked!”“When?”

“Midnight!”

“That’s not likely, Bill,” she said soothingly. “The coroner estimates he died around 12. Poor Ted – only 58 years old. It looks like you’re the last author he helped.”

Ted Loden always went the extra mile for his authors. He had done so one last time. 

*   *   *

Jon Krampner’s short stories and flash fiction have appeared in Literally Stories, Bright Flash Literary Review, No Bars And a Dead Battery (Owl Canyon Press) and other publications. He lives in Los Angeles and is sarcastic in three languages. 

 

 

 

By Justene Musin

I decided on the perimeter between myself and my apprehensions not long ago.

It begins when I get into my bed. It finishes when I step out of it. 

Under the duvet, I am enveloped into a cocoon, tethered to it. A bubble. A barrier between myself and the sometimes scary, sometimes wonderful world outside. The mattress is my home base. With fleece flannel sheets, it feels like a steaming hot mochaccino. With labyrinthian tendrils of steam unfurling. So snug. 

Even though gravity exists just the same here, there’s a feeling of weightlessness. As light as a feather of candy floss.  

There are no worries in this place. No judgements. Just acceptance. My bed just takes me as I am, in whatever state I am, and holds me. 

The concerns of the day are at bay. They are tucked, folded, stacked into the drawer. To be dealt with later. They slide into another realm. 

Nothing and no one can affect me. I am an island. 

The threads deep inside that were snarled and oh so tangled, are beginning the first phase of unravelling. Releasing. Breathing slows. My heart is less like a leaden stone and more like a swirl of cloud. 

I am good enough, strong enough, resilient enough here. Here, I am what I say I am. Nothing and no one questions me, or makes me second guess myself. 

Time slows. The outside world is quiet. And so is my mind. It moves to mist. The fog is clearing. Sparkles of stars and moonlight beckon. 

As the night eventuates, I rest, I sleep, I dream, I wonder, I ponder, I relax, I unwind. My body resets its computer system and reboots while I shut down for the night. 

Eight hours gone in a snap of fingers. Eyes open. Awake. I feel it. Everything that was tightly intertwined has fully untangled itself. I have a some twinkle, a small glint in my eye again. 

My duvet embraces me, but now is time to say adieu to my safe haven. I build myself up to what the young new day holds. My inner child is reminded to accept my foibles and acknowledge my strengths. You are what you believe. 

In one swift move, I step out of bed, re-open the metaphorical drawer, and move beyond the perimeter.  

My systems have successfully reset, and are running like a dream. 

*   *   *

Justene Musin’s writing has appeared in Macrame, Waffle Fried, Landfall, Quadrant and other publications. She also has penned a travel memoir: To Paris, Venice and Rome. Justene lives by Kohimarama Beach in Auckland, New Zealand.