Mr. Chevelle

Desmond Chevelle, the celebrated scholar and writer of countless works of literature delving deep into the social, political, and spiritual issues of the modern age, is also the subject of several multi-million dollar films, and a generous philanthropist giving it all away to hundreds of charities world-wide. In his youth he traveled the world collecting new species of medicinal herbs and gathered a religious following in India. He went on numerous psychedelic explorations into new realms of consciousness enabling him to transcend time and space on his moped and later on paint what is now considered one of the great masterpieces of our modern time. In his prime, Mr. Chevelle also founded his own political party and traveled to Mars and back in time to find the cure for cancer as well as invent the first ever teleportation device. In his later years he took up teaching at Oxford where he created much of his literature now considered classics and inspired generations of students. Mr. Chevelle is now retired and living a quiet life, choosing to spend many of his days at his summer home in Montana where he gardens and digs holes through the lithosphere to new worlds. Often, visitors will find him in the garden shed out back reminiscing about the adventures of his past and sitting in a bag of manure or tucked away in the corner with the hoes and rakes, the dirt from Mars and scars from past explorations still evident on his exterior.

Hello Kitty

It was storming the day my parents brought her home—Mother Nature’s way of mocking us for what we didn’t know was to come. The only reason I remember now—some 25 years later—is because my mother still reminds me that she should have taken the weather as an omen. She never should have gotten up when the phone rang. Never should have said yes when the pastor’s wife asked if my parents were interested in taking care of someone who seemed to have no place in this world.

But my mother did both of those things, and Madison waltzed into our lives. A three-foot-tall victim of domestic violence, she walked into our house and I slammed my bedroom door in her face. I had no desire to share my thirteen-year-old world.

It wasn’t long, though, before that changed. I never knew a heart not used to receiving love could give so much of it. I would come home from eighth grade—full of raging hormones and teenage angst—to find Madison on my bed, wide-eyed and accepting.

A year had passed when the doctors told us. My mother started crying there in the hospital room and didn’t stop until months after we put that miniature casket into the earth.

It stormed that day too.

Just yesterday my daughter unearthed a Hello Kitty toy from somewhere in our basement. Its pink bow and purple skirt reminded me too vividly of the times I had watched another little girl play with it.

“This is for you, Mommy.” She smiled, a prize from someone who was too young to realize her gift already belonged to me, too young to realize the hands that had first given me that toy had changed my life.

I smiled down at her, my precious daughter. “Thank you, Madison.”

Pakman

I didn’t know why we were here. We never could just be a normal couple because Maddy wasn’t a normal girl. She was attracted to the weirdest things, like creepy yard sales in the middle of nowhere. I searched for her amidst all the junk, and after a minute of searching, recognized her figure bending over to look at something on the ground.

What was she doing now? I made my way over to her, dodging all the heaps of trinkets and overcrowded tables and knelt beside her.

“Ready to go yet?”

“Why?” she asked absentmindedly. “You were the one who wanted to road-trip, so that’s what we’re doing! Meeting the natives and not just watching from the car window.”

I sighed and looked at the object in her hand. “And what is that?”

She smiled. “I’m not sure, but it’s really neat, huh?” She met my eyes. “Will you buy it for me?”

I stared at the object. “It looks like a Pakman.” It was true. The figure was the size of a baseball and the color of a tomato. It was boxy with notches on the top, and on the front it had two large white eyes with dark pupils. It had no mouth.

She convinced me to buy the thing anyway and we took it to the owner who claimed he’d never seen the object but sold it to me anyway for three bucks. The pakman found a home on my desk for the rest of the brief relationship I shared with Maddy. A short time after we split, I decided it creeped me out, so I threw it in a closet.

When I came home from work the next day the pakman was sitting on my desk again. I was a little disturbed, and this time I put it in a taped shoebox and placed it back in my closet. I was a little afraid that it would be on my desk the next day when I got home, but it wasn’t. I laughed at myself and went to bed.

I woke up to a rattling noise coming from my closet. I closed my eyes and ignored it. The noise stopped; my heart was pounding. I finally opened my eyes, thinking nothing would be there.

The pakman sat inches from my face.

Hoarder

The landlord lets me into his apartment. He fumbles with a set of keys while I bite my tongue. I want to get this over with. He’s slowing me down. Inside, I’m left alone with my box of trash bags and toxic agents. Everything is a mess. I can feel him here and already I’m pissed off. He was a hoarder and I’ve got to clean up all the shit he left behind.

Aaron should be here. But he paid the funeral expenses. I’m always left with the unpleasant bits. When I open the blinds dust assaults my lungs. If Aaron were here I’d strangle him, too. But if he were here I wouldn’t want to.

Anything that might have had value is garbage now. It’s all covered in filth. Sorting this crap is pointless, I should throw it away. Decades of magazines, condiments, VHS and Beta video, cassettes, an archive of junk mail, beer cans, shoes too worn out for goodwill and so on. I put it all in the bags—black like the one they put our father in. In this I am the undertaker. I know I’ll be here tomorrow.

I strip the bed. I open the nightstand and that’s where I find it—my box. It’s filled with little treasures. At the bottom is a valentine’s card, but I can’t touch it with these stained hands. I pick up the heart hole punch on top. The tag is still on it. Provo Craft. Spanish Fork, Utah 84660 MADE IN CHINA FABRIQUE EN CHINE. I want to use it; punch out all the bitterness and anger in my chest. Right now I want to be the girl who doesn’t resent her father. Daddy, will you be my valentine?

It’s the only thing I can’t throw away.

125 Volts...Made in China

Milo's eyes glew bright white as the small bulb in the current tap flickered on and off with a loud Pop! The toddler found himself jettisoned across the living room, smashing through the glass coffee table and knocking over his mother's priceless antique china cabinet. His tiny fingers were blackened and cauterized from the intense electric heat. He wet himself.

The glass in the middle of the room had formed a sort of halo in the center of the living room, amidst the remains of the coffee table, which reflected the tiny plastic halo of the angel atop the Christmas Tree. Thankfully, the presents around the tree remained safe from the boy's voyage to the other side of the room.

Besides the Pop! from the current tap's violent reaction to a tin ornament hook being lodged inside of it, and besides the decimation of the glass coffee table, the house remained still. Milo's mother and father, exhausted from too much wine and too long Christmas parties, were still slumbering in their beds.

The current tap looked in poor shape. It's once vibrant light seemed to flicker on and off, with the tin ornament hook on the floor in front of it, playing the part of the smoking gun. It wallowed in it's death throes, the copper coils inside of it now burnt out. It was a pitiful dying wreck, grasping at the last small straws of existence.

Milo, on the other hand, heaved in breaths of air on the far wall, struggling for life as the current tap seemed resigned to it's fate. His face seemed warped with pain, and he was unable to cry out to his parents for assistance. In his mind, alongside a whirlwind of thoughts, one seemed to stand out among the rest: Where was Santa?

The Talons of Saraid

In the land of Alusia, within the depths of the earth, turmoil reigned for eons. For many generations, Daman the Red, the last dragon, assaulted the lands. Hope was at its breaking point. But hope is a resilient idea, far more infectious than any virus. And even more deadly when wielded correctly.

It was the drow, the dark elves, who first spoke of overthrowing Daman; for the drow, unlike dwarves and men, lived for near a millennium. They could still recall the battle between Daman and his sister, Saraid the Blue. And they knew where she lay buried.

Therefore, the drow embarked to Saraid’s resting place to retrieve her left claw. In it, she had held a great amulet as she attacked her brother. In a fiery battle, Saraid was slain, but her hand was not scathed by her brother’s fury. For nearly two thousand years she remained silent, unable to avenge her death.

Upon retrieving the fabled claw, the leaders of the ten tribes of men, the twelve of the drow, and the three of the dwarves came before their high councilor, Ailbe. There, they revealed their plan to use the Talons of Saraid to defeat Daman. But after unveiling their prized weapon, Ailbe began to laugh with delight. For he was himself Daman. He had been searching for his sister’s ashes for two millennia in order to take the amulet for himself and use it against the Alusians.

It was in that instant that one of the drow was overcome with that infectious idea and charged Daman with Saraid’s mighty talons in hand. What happened next is argued by all that witnessed it, but after it happened, all that remained was Sariad’s claw, charred to the bone.

It has worn by each high councilor to this day.

Vegas Visions

Every night was phantasmal, full of music, laughter, high kicks and red lipstick – but it was empty. Behind all of those beautiful showgirls’ sequins was a sadness I’d never imagined. I often felt weighed down by all of their melancholy – girls who seem to have it all, falling apart at the seams. Omaha was so far away, and after six months in Vegas I was feeling homesick. As another feather fell limply off my costume I wanted nothing more than to know exactly who I was and where I belonged. One night the seventy-something casino owner Eddie came by to visit his “favorite girls.” Singling me out, he pulled my copper curls, telling me that with my blue eyes I looked exactly like his daughter. After the show he pressed into my hands a little canister, two red dice sitting unassumingly at the bottom. His only instructions were to shake them when I felt sad.

That night as I lay in bed I remembered the dice, I felt homesick so I dug them out of my bag and shook the canister vigorously, the little dice thwacking against the plastic. And then the inexplicable happened – an arc of light appeared in my room, I saw myself in a peacock feather headdress, my hips sparkling with sequins, feathers cascading down my sides. It was otherworldly – my legs kicking in perfect sync with music the world had never heard. I became addicted to the dice, every time I shook them I saw something I wanted beautifully illustrated in front of me. It became habit, a glimpse into my future. But one day, I saw Omaha – the clear skies and uncomplicated landscape. I returned home, sitting those little dice on my bedside table just in case. I still try to shake them, but nothing happens anymore. I guess I don’t have anything left to want.