GIDEON

Gideon growled happily. There was a time, in a previous life, when happiness would make him laugh, but he barely remembered those days. Today he sat still as stone watching children play as the day’s light dimmed to dusk. He admired their energy and abandon. He could never venture out of his shell that way. 

Distant notes plucked from a guitar drifted past, evoking pale memories of his younger self wooing a lovely lady. He remembered the breeze toying with her hair and the way she lifted her hand to her mouth when she laughed. And when she touched him he lit up as though a thousand suns were burning within him. 

When she agreed to become his wife he rejoiced. The entire village was invited to share their joy. And when they later learned that they had begotten a baby, there was no limit to their happiness.

As the birth drew near and the pain grew worse, his wife assured him that she loved him and that all would be well. But alas, she died, as did the child, leaving Gideon alone.

There was no comfort for him in anything. He grew quieter and quieter, stiller and stiller. After a while he ceased to move or speak at all, a thick protective wall slowly growing to encase him. And he never laughed again.  

Now, here he sits, able only to watch and hear life being lived, joy but a seldom seen memory. And he growls in what he thinks is happiness.

Inspired by this photo taken by Brin Jackson.

The Monster in the Basement

Color spreads across the east. Birds call and fog hugs the hill outside the window. She tries not to think of the monster in the basement. 

He first arrived nearly four years ago at her naïve invitation. He was broken and she would provide him temporary refuge to heal. Slowly he grew in his monstrous power, tacitly controlling everything about her.

He would rise, roaring and ranting, if she inadvertently disturbed his sleep at any time of day. (We all know that monsters can’t keep regular human hours.) While she tried to tip toe through her home it sounded to him like the footfalls of stampeding elephants. 

Slowly she curtailed her social engagements, no longer hosting her friends for movie night or prayer. Neighbors and friends called to enquire about her safety and well-being, but she would say she was fine.

He would eat her food, but would not deign to dine with her. Perhaps he couldn’t bear the light of her kitchen and her concern.

After a while, things began to disappear. A gadget. A gold coin. Her medication. Her late husband’s wedding ring and the 50^th wedding anniversary gift – a diamond ring. Her own wedding ring. And the edges of her sanity because the monster feigned innocence and intimated she must have simply misplaced them.

Finally her health disappeared as well, borne away by the burden of stress and uncertainty. Her heart was broken and she had no choice left.

Her coffee now cold and the sky grey with threatening rain, she contemplates how she might evict the monster, her own, her son, from his basement throne.

Dream Fishing

I fold in upon myself
to dream and conjure
other places and
other faces
from past   present   future.
They arrive in
a rush of color
and texture...

Underwater, currents tease.
My hair rises like kelp
and wavers above
my  head.
Ideas swim by
flashing fins and
rising bubbles
guiding me to the surface.

The sun smiles
in my direction
shy in the early morning haze
and I wake for the day,
fishing back
through memory
for treasures from the deep.

riding the subway in Boston

Moving slow, side to side
then surging forward
in a rush.
My  head is briefly cradled against a
random man's shoulder,
his arm, stretched forward,
draped just above my own,
a false intimacy forced by
proximity and crush.
I face a seated woman
whose roots are reverting to
their origins.
Porter Square.
The elderly man next to her
rises and wades his way
to the exit leaving behind a newspaper
in his wake.
She pats the vacated seat beside her,
beckoning the man behind me.
Is he the one who left the
finger shaped bruises on her arm,
stark gray blue against her pale skin?
He takes the seat and now
it is her head cradled on his shoulder.
Harvard Square.
I gather my observations and assumptions
and exit the scene.