I invite all of my readers to come and explore my fall short story collection. Whether it is read with crumpets and tea on a rainy morning or freshly squeezed lemonade in the sunset abyss, there is a story for all to read and dive into. The Horse’s Sunday will truly evoke inspiration to write. Enjoy!
Luck
I wish I could say with sorrow
that it was sent to me sentimentally
by a foreign long lost love
or a mysterious pen pal,
but alas,
I scavenged it from a colorful void
full of bickering women, screaming infants,
and one noisy shopkeeper,
Or in other words,
the European IKEA that crowds
find themselves wandering into
displaying
vigorously fierce European perfumes,
that leave trails of unwanted scent,
milk-chocolate candies,
that melt like silky caramel
in your warm mouth,
and boxes of stingy cigarettes
that infected the savory wafting city air
with ash and smoke.
The postcards were the ones with imprinted medieval castles,
the nighttime city lights of the Charles Bridge,
and glass-windowed stained churches
with gold fringes ornament blinding tourists’ eyes.
I remember home;
The sun would climb to greet
the white mountain every morning,
the moon and stars would
wish the purple sky goodnight,
The particular breath of family and familiarity
would linger through the paved down streets
of children laughing,
The food of the women,
with dancing floral print
who wished they raised me,
warmed the stomach of the house,
And the black and gray stories
of knights and kingdoms
would paint the darkness in the night
into the light that would keep on giving.
On the silky sharp pieces of cut-out paper,
nothing was written on it.
Except for the invisible ink
that I bought from the school book fair
serving justice to many of my imaginary friends.
But every time I look through the box of my travels,
these postcards transport me to another
continent,
Another dream
Another wish
Where I can see my family
1,000 eternities away.
Beautiful Thing
It was never a beautiful thing; trodden down streets full of dirty beggars like myself, but it was home. I will say I won’t miss the howling tunes they used to hum in the middle of the night, or sleeping outside through the gaze of the starry night seeing my breath whisper in the gnawing frost, or even the children with their strawberry ice cream in their trembling hands when they visit our alley.
I am going away, packing up a coffee cup full of shining quarters and my small black backpack full of the sorrow I collected over the years. People call me a drifter. People call me a vagrant. People call me a hobo. But I am a wanderer. I follow the shameless Sun- in a world of 8 million civilians walking in expensive suits and a briefcase. Some snarl, and some take pity on my worn-down appearance. But I just glare at them through my watery eyes, which are filled with memories of a happy free person long ago. I wander through the pouring rain and the raging snowstorm. I wander through the pouncing Sun and the rapturous floodwaters. Stuck under the Brooklyn bridge, they may think, starving for the bottle of colorful pills they may assume, trapped in my worst nightmare- they are right.
I am wandering now, to a place full of the unknown, where every day will not be the same piteous routine.
I am wandering now to a place where I will walk like a corporate in their flamboyant business suits and briefcases.
I am wandering now, to a place where I will find my peace.
However, I will miss the guilty feeling. The guilty feeling of watching the sunrise at the crack of dawn amid the bustling city lights, when I knew that every day was a chance to start my life.
I will indeed miss it.
I am not a drifter, vagrant, nor hobo.
I am a wanderer.
The Cottage
It was a peculiarly charming, antique gray cottage, aged like the wrinkles of time. Drunken by the edges, with whispers of the ancient tottering, and the billows of smoke would forever blow from the brick chimney. It was long overdue. I wonder if someone lived there through the blistering winter night.
The snow falls, and as it flies over the fields, it appears that there is nowhere for it to land, but on the poor little cottage. The bitter coldness would find its prey and gnaw at the children’s bones, inside the cottage, who were fighting over the quilted blanket. The strong-willed and rosy-cheeked father, with his one-hundred-pound bear skin, would come hyperventilating through the announced trumpets in the sky. The mother would be scrambling to start the fire with her feebly-shaking hands, hushing the crying baby in her other arm. The cold streaks at night burst through the glass windows. Gushes of wind bellowed at the rooftop of the cinder block house, harassing its wellbeing. The cottage could not hide nor run away. It could only be still, as the dark pigment devoured the sky. It would break down into shreds of wood or glass one time or another, rustling in the silence of the night. The storm had just begun, and it would not rest until the peaceful morning ahead.
However, seconds, days, and months slipped away. With the mere presence of the whittling weeds sprouting at the crack of dawn, I can say that it was particularly prideful, neat, and clean during the blooming season. The Sun rose timely to meet the ordinance of the Giotto blue sky. And the honeysuckle trees would bring forth need from the whirling bees. The children would run barefoot through the fields of butterflies and lick the drizzles of sweet honey from this spring’s scavenged honey forage. The cottage would admire the sight of the children it held on to and watch them grow through their feeble shivering bones in the winter to their plump rosy-cheeked bodies in the warmer months. Just like the garden, they would grow with the sunkissed warmth and pastel sunrises, and fall at the midnight dusk, ready for a sleepily, burning stove-top rest.
The children were the cottage’s flowers, and she loved them very much despite her unstableness. Just miles east, horses galloped to the similar rhythm of pattered raindrops. The buffaloes would swarm around the hazy green grass. The breath of the wind flew into the cottage and caused the pottery to clank and clunk. The trails near the cottage and garden were filled with ordinary walkers and galloping stagecoaches with the most pristine duchesses and governors or voyagers from the European waters. There was always some crackling noise by the fire in the summer haze, the kindling lighting in the hearth, hums of cricketing insects. Laughter caressed the air that filled the cottage up like a warm glass of tea and honey cakes. Ice cubes sizzled by the window seal and evaporated into the heat through the opening and closing windows. The days seemed to bleed endlessly together.
Everything was perfect until it was not. Good days must come to an end.
Leaves slowly crossed the path of the road, trotting along with the empty paleness. The windows creak open from time to time, leaving a trail of autumn loneliness through the cracks and holes that the spiders crawled into for comfort. The cottage was reconstructed by the various dimensions of vacant stares from the empty white walls. The music played from the fiddle seemed to disintegrate out of existence into a forgotten memory.
I imagine that the family slowly flew up into the sky, ready to rest at once, or they moved to the Southlands, where the frost could not bite. The doors of the sorrowed cottage are open to this day, reliving the vibrant life that it once had. But nobody has gone in since to feel the sorrow of emptiness within the last breath of the cottage.
Ode to Green
A valiant emerald that was found in the 19th century
from the deepest parts of the ocean trench,
now hibernating in a double bolted titanium case.
An exacerbated grandma
kneading the pudding for the key lime pie,
wafting into the solemn house.
The smell of cold richness in a 6 story mansion.
The leprechaun’s sorrow with his unlucky four-leaf clovers.
A dragon’s sneeze. A vampire’s wheeze.
A toddler stuffing peas in their nose.
Buttery tender lettuce on a sandwich.
The color of jealousy and rage, with the
calming essence of parsley and sage.
A meadow of sheep with miles of never-ending grass.
The wild outcasted tangles of the jungle
where every noise is an alarm of fear.
The substance you find at the
bottom of a boy’s locker.
The color of the March’s breeze.
The dancing northern lights
on the tip of the horizon.
The precious slimy algae
on the fisherman’s net.
The meddling ocean’s romance.
Dollar green. Forevergreen. Evergreen.
The dressing of the Earth’s
leafy population
Where it was once naked and bald,
and a green starry night.
A starry green night where the Earth
was once young and free.
Last Man
The last man on earth knocked on the door. No one answered. It was a solemn world, cold and feverly. What must he do now? It was locked from the inside out. He cried and cried. In fact, he cried all the time in the world to cry.
The Pantry
The pantry was the least grand attraction in the abandoned house. It consisted of a plain wooden door, dust sticking on to it. Many daring visitors assumed cobwebs were hidden there, nothing more. When two troubled, juvenile boys, Tommy and Robby, thought it was a good idea to visit at night, they opened the door, and a staircase to what looked like a lair was displayed.
They creeped timidly
down
down
down,
into a hollow, dark mine underground.
Exhaust fumes of gas were released into the air. Cobwebs were tangled intricately on the sticky walls. Loud piercing screams echoed through the rock walls. And if you listened closely, cries of children were unleashed into your ears. Medieval portraits hanging on the walls of the staircase seemed to cry out, “Avenge thee tis night!”, and “ Bring those unworthy of his power to exile!” Said a voice in the darkness.
Perspective
She wakes up today in her pink flavored mansion. Flamboyant statues of enormous cats scatter around each corner of her bedroom, especially the rest of the house, causing fright towards outsiders (many wonder if this was done intentionally). A pink dress screeches as she exhaustingly zips it up, with a flashy light pink coat, and finishing it off with a cat pin that meows every time you press it. Her fat red lips smudge stains on the teacup overflowing with sugar cubes, and she takes a huge chunk at her chocolate crumpet. After her appetite is satisfied, fresh honey blossoms are quickly added to an intricately painted vase.
The morning routine finishes with her short stubby feet running as fast as they could to the calling of the garden. She slides the french, golden door open to a wild jungle of tall rose and tulip stalks, 50 feet high in the air. Quite the attraction and money-maker to tourists as they visit the stale town of Carcass. Her eyes inspect thoroughly the thickness of the garden. “Food. You need more food darlings.” She said blatantly to the giants in the air. While many of us garden as a relief, a way to get closer to nature, or believe it or not- exercise, Mara does it to “gain power, therefore feeding it to her army of children,” as she puts it. A rose petal tumbles down onto a bird’s nest, nearly suffocating a baby bluebird; its cries are heard from miles away. She sings enthusiastically, “Don’t worry dearies. The time will come for you to evolve out of this stuffy atmosphere. He will come…- our savior, and bring with him his underdogs from down below to feed us more victims.”
At dark, lamp lights flicker leaving the street pitch black.
The Trail of Peace
From afar, a busily colored street with fiery orange shades of deterring leaves somehow shades the red two bunker bus. The savored oak tree stretches its branches in the air, to touch the rooftops of the red brick office buildings, with a hint of Victorian architecture influence. The big, towering golden clock ticks in the distance, and suddenly, it sings out with joy, shaking the crumpled leaves on the ground, and the wind howls. The smell of sugary cinnamon churros breathes into the crisp sprinkling air and wafers into the automatic doors of the bus. The children, looking up from their tablets, moan with their sweet tooth, but immediately look back down. The diesel of the vehicle trails the bus.
An elder woman with a flower printed dress clutches her black handbag tightly, and with the other hand, she grabs her husband’s hand. The aged man, with thick glasses, smiles bleakly. But then, he looks down to the ground. His glasses reflect the blackness of the platform ground, crumbs here and there. The woman looks out through the misty glass window and feels the pain. The pain of the city, with its rushing vibrant white lights that peer forcefully into one’s eye, the constant yelling of the taxi cabs, the badgering of adolescents playing booming music at midnight, and the black hoodlums at night with knives in their hands running around. The city was always seeking attention.
The decked bus, although filled with laughter, screeching of infants, glaring white screens of tablets, arguing among old men, and curses of the driver, contains the idea of solitude for the passing greenery of flat land, stretching on and on for what seemed miles. The sun in the distance is overcast, but the sun occasionally peers out on the few blue wildflowers. A young girl with long hair and an older girl, both in simple cozy dresses, wave to the bus, as they continue to put the flowers in their sack. Little hares come out of their burrows to see the bustling noise of the new visitor, and circle around the flatlands.
Of what seemed like centuries, the bus flies through the greenness of eternity, or nowhere. Just green streak after green streak. Now yellow dusted leaves take the authority of the greenness, through their tug-o-war extravagant game. The wind starts to become quieter and softer, so that every leaf that tumbles to the ground, sounds like a booming stomp in the echoes. Monarch butterflies mindlessly follow the red trailing line of the bus, with the smell of native evergreen trees, making way through their twisted branches for their visitor.
The woman squeezes her bag even tighter, looking nervously at her husband. He just nods silently, knowing that their destination will arrive soon. So, she blankly stares at the mixture of yellow leaves and green land through the foggy glass.
Little pieces of broken-down bridges tower each other with fragrant signs on the highest ground exclaiming destination points. Oh, but they wouldn’t need destination points, as the trail of green and yellow lines transformed into an autumnal mix of glory raining down on the window wipers of the red bus, some leaves camouflaging with one another. While other colorful things fly into the air of the sky, trying to reach the lowest part of the dark evergreen family of mountains, guarding the shimmering dark ocean blue river beneath the ancient, ivy leaf bridge. However, most leaves create a trail to the house, 5 ft away from the approaching velvety red bus, with people looking straight up to the warm house, filled with fire smoke in the chimney, and towering pine needles on the rooftop, in addition to a view of the caving mountains looking down on the children running around the cottage in the middle of nowhere, and a elder women and her husband laughing freely through the trailing breeze of the crisp air. They arrived in the middle of nowhere, where they finally had their peace. Where everyone can have their peace.
Tea Crumpets
Her hands break in silence.
Textbook page after textbook page.
Application after application.
When will she touch the growing ivy again?
When will she be able to walk outside in the midst?
When can she feel the sun’s glazing warmth on her face?
Never.
Typing after typing.
Staring after staring at a blank screen.
Her hands ache to live in a vivid life,
One with flaming saffron,
Resplendent kaleidoscopic morals
A fall foliage of arresting sunsets.
The wind bangs at her window,
Trying to reach for her hands
-free her soul.
Her memories lost, no tales to tell,
Except of the anguish of staring in a blank room,
Hypnotized with all the lies of the world.
Creaked, feeble hands try to make it through
And reach life itself
The future ahead.
Bee The Change 