Next Time I’ll Take the Off-Ramp from Memory Lane by Gregory Meece, chocolate milk—the quintessential beverage of my school lunches

I had never won anything before. Even at those childhood parties where the games were rigged so every kid went home with a prize, I left empty-handed. So, you can picture my utter astonishment when I scraped my car key across the last box on my lottery scratch-off card, and the symbol beneath revealed that I was a million-dollar winner! The odds must have been akin to being attacked by a shark and struck by lightning — at the same time.

For years, I bought tickets, never expecting to win. Still, it was worth a few dollars each week to indulge in fantasies about what I might do with the jackpot. Now, in the autumn of my life — or rather, the winter solstice — the likelihood of splurging on a yacht and cruising the seven seas is slim. I resolved to allocate a generous portion of my unexpected windfall to charities.

I embarked on my philanthropic journey by making a major gift to my college alma mater. My diploma never did me one iota of good, but I have fond memories of continuous partying from orientation day to the commencement ceremony. Incidentally, ‘iota’ is the ninth and smallest letter of the Greek alphabet. With such intellectual nuggets as that, perhaps I’ve sold my Classical Studies degree short.

I received a personally signed, computer-generated form letter from the college president — thanking me for my tax-deductible ‘investment in scholarly minds.’ It inspired me to extend my generosity to my old high school as well. The current principal personally called to express his gratitude. He informed me that my high school had, some years ago, been converted into a school for juvenile delinquents. My donation, he explained, would be allocated to reinforcing the security fence surrounding the playing fields. Knowing that my gift would be used for barbed wire didn’t leave me feeling warm all over, but at least he took the time to pick up the phone and thank me.

My grade school was where my acts of giving were truly valued, culminating in an invitation to return. In fundraising terms, this is known as ‘donor cultivation’ — the practice of softening up a current contributor in the hope of achieving more liberal access to their wallets in the future.

As I pulled into the parking spot, the sight of children darting across the recess yard greeted me — a scene reminiscent of my own youthful escapades at this very school. Yet, the memories that stood out were not just the games, but the inevitable aftermath: the harsh blacktop claimed many victims, gifting us skinned knees and fractured wrists, amidst the constant fear of catching cooties.

Sister Assumpta, the principal, invited me to tour what she fondly called ‘Good Old St. Richard School For Boys.’ Back then, we boys disparagingly referred to it as ‘Saint Dick.’ You can imagine what we would have nicknamed Sister Assumpta.

Sister highlighted the tour as an opportunity to showcase the school’s progress and its plans. It was a subtle fundraising pitch disguised as a nostalgic walk down memory lane.

‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ Sister said. I recognized the Kindergarten. Although the room had tables and chairs, the children, which now included both sexes, sat on alternating-colored patches of carpet, resembling one side of a checkerboard.

‘This is where we learn our ABCs,’ said the effervescent teacher. She added, ‘Someone once said that everything they needed to know in life they learned in Kindergarten.’ All I remember learning in this room was how to conceal the expanding oil slick that spread across the crotch of my uniform pants after I peed myself on the first day. We were only allowed to use the restrooms during lunch period.

In the sixth-grade classroom, long division was the day’s focus. Memories flooded back of Sister Margaret, my math’s teacher, who would summon me to the board. ‘Identify the divisor, dividend, quotient, and remainder,’ she would command, her yardstick punctuating each word with a sharp tap against the blackboard. The rhythmic tapping, far from helpful, only heightened my anxiety. Long division was my nemesis, branding my report card with a ‘U’ — a mark of ‘Unsatisfactory’ that my father mistakenly thought stood for ‘Unbeatable.’ I can still recall the sting of disappointment in his eyes as Sister Margaret clarified its true meaning.

I peered into an eighth-grade room. Some pimply, smart alecks were laughing at a boy who farted. The science teacher was trying her best to explain forces and motion. It brought back a flood of nightmarish memories. For example, being mocked by my classmates because my mother packed liverwurst on rye sandwiches in my lunchbox. They were no match for their trendier fluffer nutters. I was branded with the unshakable nickname ‘Liver Lips.’

Sister guided me into the church. It was supposed to be a gymnasium when the school was built, but the budget forced the parish to prioritize dogma over dodgeball. Suddenly, I recalled a sharp pain in my arm, reminiscent of where Johnny Barto pinched me during the Stations of the Cross services. It happened just as Father O’Brien solemnly declared, ‘The eleventh station: Jesus is nailed to the cross.’ ‘Ouch!’ I screamed. That monosyllabic outcry condemned me to a week of clapping erasers beside the flagpole. Through a haze of chalk dust that triggered my asthma, I was forced to watch my friends revel in games of Crack the Whip and Red Rover.

For an hour I had toured and wandered through a maze of memories, each turn echoing the anguish of my years in Catholic grade school. Opening my checkbook, I said, ‘Sister, I’m going to make another donation to your school.’

‘Oh God bless you!’ Sister replied.

‘One condition. Never invite me back for another walk down memory lane. I don’t think I could take it.’

About the author

Gregory Meece is a retired educator who graduated from the University of Delaware, earning degrees in English, communications, and educational leadership. Gregory's stories have been accepted in print and online publications as well as podcasts. He lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

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Slave Master by Cate Covert, a grape Fizzy--remember Fizzies?

 

Slave Master

by Cate Covert

This might be a grape Fizzy--remember Fizzies?

 

 

My name is Timidity, and my master, Fear — he’s the decrepit old crow-looking thing perched on my shoulder — dictates my life because though I hate him, I can’t evict him, for he has instilled myriad shuddering reasons for me to dread losing him.

He’s usually vigilant, but sometimes he sleeps, so I must fret and it’s hard work. But I do it efficiently for no reward because gluttonous Fear eats all of the fruit of my night and day terrors, though he hasn’t actually stolen a thing from me, because I’ve given it all to him VOLUNTARILY. Deep down inside I’m like a zombie who wants to ransack the lab to find the magic medicine that will turn me back into a real girl, and I resent him as he gloats and reminds me that I am nothing without him.

I despise myself, but I can’t seem to cut off his whispery, cackling commentary because without him to consider the dangers and troubleshoot every angle, I might make a mistake, so here I remain.

My cousin, Faith, will visit soon, but it’s hard to tolerate her — she’s so cheerful — but she brings me food, medicine, and magazines every Wednesday at 9am, so I grit my teeth and force myself to smile at her pitiful attempts to comfort me. ‘Hi, how are you Timidity, but dear you must get that nasty creature off your shoulder because he’s just using you, and can you see how shriveled and ugly he is, except for his nasty, bloated belly, where he hoards your victories?’  I end up aggravated because she won’t listen to my litany of aches and pains, fears for today, tonight, tomorrow, next week, and next year.

Still, in a moment of weakness, to appease her, I crane my neck, and I can’t see the imp, but she asks me if I want to be FREE—if Fear has heard this, he raises no objection, so in spite of myself I raise my eyebrows to Faith, who whispers ‘He is sleeping’, so I gasp (before I can change my mind) ‘HELP ME!’

Fear stirs, but with astonishing speed, Faith sweeps him off my shoulder and onto the floor, stomping him to make sure he is dead, while I — wondering as the lights fade why I didn’t do that for myself long ago — mercifully faint.

About the Author

 Since she could talk, Cate Covert has been regaling friends and family with her tall tales. She loves engaging with her reading audiences. Her poetry, flash fiction, and humorous stories reside at Cate Covert on Chadashah.org, and her Inspirational essays at Pastora Cate’s Corner on Substack. 

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Waltzing Matilda by Kate Durrant, decaffeinated coffee

 Emily Dickinson got it wrong.
The loved do die and love is not immortal, although I’ll grant her ‘Parting is .... all we need of hell.' It’s messy and inconvenient and, frankly, heart breaking because when one heart stops, another one shatters.
But at least they haven’t taken him away.
He’s still mine in the deathly, quiet house while I wait for the serious suited undertakers to arrive. I told them not to hurry.

It was inevitable that we would find ourselves here.
Me breathing, him not.
The illness that has been stealthily claiming him, day by day, memory by memory, has finally come back for his body.
Each day eroding all that he was as he reached the summit of his life and slowly made his descent, scattering pieces of himself on the cold, unforgiving mountain of lucidity. Discarding not only his own memories as he stumbled down but my memories of him also.
Each day shrinking as his voice rattled weakly around in the skeleton that wore its skin like an older brother’s hand-me-down overcoat as he visibly contracted under the weight of a life lived too long.
'From hero to zero,' he wheezed quietly one day as he teetered precariously on the edge of the bed he could no longer get into unaided, before swallowing the plethora of tablets that did nothing but make ME feel better.
I pretended not to hear as I busied myself trying to clothe his dusty, disintegrating, sock resisting foot which was the latest appendage to refuse to cooperate and do the job it was made for.
I can do anything, but not honesty.

We are alone now.
I thought they would never go, these well meaning people who answered our call in the lonely small hours with speed and kindness, and I needed them to go, needed to have him to myself. They allowed themselves to be ushered down the picture-lined hall with my words of thanks. Unable to look at the black and white frozen images of our former selves with our rictus grins and self conscious poses enjoying high days and holidays.
They left wearily, resigned to my refusals of help that would have allowed them to mentally discharge me and hand me over to someone, anyone, as I closed the door on them and the breaking dawn of my new life.

I’m tired and cold, jangling from too little sleep and too much caffeine.
Too much loss.
Alive with nerves and adrenaline and determination I take a breath and reluctantly push open the creaking kitchen door, ashamed of my fear of the loose limbed body that I am somewhat surprised to find still on the cold hard floor where life left him as if asleep.
And he’s been sleeping for a long time now.
Not falling into sleep, but more being claimed by it, his waking merely stolen moments from the sleep that nearly owned him.
'Nearly never was,' my long dead father used to say.
‘It is now,' I answer him sadly.

I stare in awe at his stillness, at his unlined face at peace with all former transgressions.
There is no priest coming.
No sins remembered and none to forgive.
Not wishing to disturb him I tiptoe around his body and take a cushion from the easy chair in the sunroom that bears his imprint. Gently lifting his head, I surrender it back into the downy softness, reaching out with my other hand to take the good blanket from the back of the couch. The one that always had its label showing outwards and was NOT TO BE USED, before gently draping it over the still body that I knelt beside.

Despite, or maybe because, of all that is dead in my world I have never felt more alive as the engine of his empty body cools and his heat flows into my cold bones warming me in death as he did in life.
His big toe, with its brittle nail betraying him with the yellow of age and decay, peaks out from underneath the blanket and as I reverently hide it away I catch a glimpse of his translucent leg, muscles atrophied, deprived for so long of life and sun. Wearing the tubed pouch that did the job his bladder had long forgotten how to, insultingly still filling with his urine.
The last defiant act of his dead body.
‘This little piggy went to Heaven,’ I thought gently tickling his now hidden toe, as I stretched out my other arm for his phone, discarded under the chair where it had fallen from his dressing gown pocket as we moved him earlier. His body flopping like a puppet unbound from the tangled strings of life as we, without success, tried to reattach him.

He loved that phone.
Loved indiscriminately pressing its buttons. Hated its refusal to talk to him.
No new messages.
No saved messages.
‘Something wrong with this, 'he would mutter, stabbing his finger in the general direction of the numbers.
‘We’ll look at it tomorrow,’   I would say as I gently prised it out of his hands and plugged it in for a superfluous charge.
There are few places as lonely as the call register of someone who lives in the poorer, sicker, worser side of life.
My own phone is missing, lost in the earlier panic, in that time when hope was present, and as I toss his phone gently from hand to hand I know that I will have to use it soon to tell ‘the news’. The only person that matters, the only one I want to tell, is here.
Dead on the floor.
Getting colder and more distant by the minute as that which loaned him to me now reclaims him.

Soon he will belong to many.
Those from his past, and those who wished him to be in their future.

The siblings, distanced by life, but sad all the same at the loss of someone they once fought with and for.
The cousins remembering childhood adventures.
The unborn grandchildren.

The children wishing they had done more not realising until it was too late that, well, it was too late.
So little to be shared between so many before the rituals of death claim him and he is returned to me in an impossibly small box.

He had cushioned my last loss as we buried my father together.
His arms around me, the kettle on a rolling boil, as he filled the cavernous gap left my by father's love with meatballs in his special sauce and flambeed bananas.
And it worked.
Those fiery bananas and lovingly rolled balls of mince and breadcrumbs softened the ragged edges of my loss, the last beautiful gift from my father as I realised how loved I was.
I look across him at the cold kettle wondering who will boil away the lacerated edges of this loss with tea and complex carbohydrates.
Wondering what I will do with all this love that now has no place to go.
Saliva trickles down his chin as his jaw slowly sags, dislodging the blanket to reveal his skeletal shoulder.
I lean over to tuck it into the warmth catching sight of Alexa.
‘Alexa,’ I tentatively ask as I anchor the blanket under his stiffening collarbone, 'What do you do when someone dies?'
‘Ummm,' says Alexa in her measured tone, completely unruffled by the dead man lying in front of her, ‘It is appropriate to express sympathy, you may wish to say I’m sorry for your loss...'

I stop her before she goes any further, cutting across the banalities that I know I will hear far too often over the coming days of tepid tea and well meant sandwiches, and ask her instead for our favourite song.

Unoffended she stops talking mid sentence and the strains of Waltzing Matilda start to gently dance their way around the room and I gaze at your slack jaw and wonder if you are now free to ‘waltz your Matilda all over.’
Your theme tune.

The lyrics a time machine to raucous sing songs in tapas bars after long beach days, and small underground taverns in cold Eastern European cities with unsmiling, gutteral audiences who nevertheless slid unpalatable drinks down the bar to you in thanks.
How prophetic it proved and how fast we found out that when your mind wanders so too do your supporting cast.

There were indeed few left to ‘to grieve, to mourn, and to pity.’
But before then, before they left, we had sang and drank and loved and laughed and lived. We had waltzed, and we had waltzed again.
Before we realised that, truly, there were worse things than dying.

The ache in my back breaks my reverie and I push my cold, stiffening body up from the floor and put the kettle on, opening the dishwasher door as I reach in to take out two mugs.
My mug.
His mug.

His still warm from the heat of the dishwasher, a gift that I allow myself to imagine is the warmth of his hands.
I automatically spoon a teaspoon and a half of coffee in his mug and the same amount of sugar, gently folding in the milk before splashing the boiled water on the muddy mess at the bottom of the mug.

A lifetime of coffee making.
A lifetime of pouring love on the muddy mess of life and making something beautiful. Is over.

The dogs stir, their ears pricking as they recognise before I the gravitas of the car that pulls up outside.

I stand as still as Lot’s wife, my body turning into salty tears as his returns to dust, as the world knocks quietly but firmly at the door waiting to come in and scoop my future off the cold kitchen floor.
Leaving me only a mug full of cooling coffee and the best blanket now faintly wearing the acetone tang of his decaying body.

I kneel awkwardly beside him and press my wet cheek gently to his as I did when I put him to bed last night, THE last night, as we performed the awkward nightly manoeuver that had replaced our passion with something far more intimate.
Both of us laughing as we stumbled through the nocturnal mis-arrangement of legs and body parts.

Part lift.
Part hug.
Complete love.
Swaddled by the bedding he released me, allowing himself to relax into its safety and comfort as I gently pulled back out of our tangled embrace.
Smiling at his face, THAT face, I busied myself with the covers and asked, as I always did, ‘Did you have a good day?’
He turned his head towards me and, giving my question his full attention, looked at me through trusting, guileless eyes answering, as HE always did, ‘I think so,’ before frowning slightly and looking to me for confirmation as he questioned, ‘Didn’t I?”
Bending to press my lips to his forehead, I turned off the bedside light as I kissed him for the last time as I answered gently, ‘You did.’
Yes.
You did. 

 

About the author 

 An award winning short story writer, Kate’s fiction and poetry has been published in Irish Country Magazine, Irish Examiner, Sunday Independent and numerous anthologies and journals. She regularly contributes her vignettes to RTE Radio One; Pause for Thought BBC Radio Two, and The Irish Farmers Journal. 

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Two Brothers Have a Chat by Judith Skilleter, prosecco

There is a small country in Eastern Europe hidden among the istans and astans and ovias that is ruled by a Grand Duke. He is a good ruler, strong as well as benevolent and his people love him. He is Grand Duke Paul. He has a younger twin brother, Peter, who has refused any title offered to   him. He likes to be known as Pete and he lives on his farm, actually a large ducal estate, with his wife, Margarita, three daughters and one son. He is a grower, a farmer, a keeper of livestock. He looks after his farm (estate) in a way that we should be looking after the planet – no pesticides, no herbicides and lots of re-wilding. He loves his life.

Pete’s three daughters are Violetta, Carmen and Norma. Margarita is a great fan of opera and she visits la Scala in Milan as often as her agricultural and family duties allow. Pete had put his feet down firmly when she wanted to name their fourth child, and only son, Figaro. He is Maximilian, after Paul and Pete’s father. As for Margarita her birthday present every year from the Grand Duke is a case of Tequila, a case of Cointreau and a basket of limes. Unfortunately she hates margaritas and the Grand Duke knows it. But both the Grand Duke and his brother think this gift is a very funny joke. Margarita reluctantly puts up with it but would prefer fine wines as a gift.

Since the boys were very young as they are identical twins there have been jokes about Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask. Pete has many times been teased by bullies that if he was not careful the Grand Duke would be told and he, Pete, would be put in an iron mask and spirited away to a far distant part of the country forever. That threat itself is nonsense as their country is so small there is nowhere that is far away. But Dumas’ story and fate of the brothers who did not get on is always present and Paul and Peter consider themselves very lucky to have a good relationship that does not contain any jealousy or competition. Pete would hate to rule his country and Paul had no idea whatsoever about growing things and nature.

But every so often the threat of farmer Pete to the regal Grand Duke rears its’ ugly head and today the Grand Duke is visiting Pete to discuss the problem. He arrives in time for coffee with three security men who stay outside. Paul likes having time with his brother and sister-in-law, Margarita. Life on the farm was so different from the austere and regimented life at court. He loves the way he can sit in the kitchen and watch his coffee being made instead of it being brought on a silver tray by whoever is on duty that day. He knows that if he went to the palace kitchens to make his own coffee it would take so long, his palace is very big, that he would have gone off the idea of coffee before he got there.

Paul starts the conversation

I need to talk to you in private, Pete. The whisperers are back.

The whisperers were Paul and Pete’s name for those who tried to undermine the relationship between the twins and indeed the governing of the country. Up to now the whisperers had always failed.

Let’s take our coffee to the maze then and if we are nimble we will lose the security men.

The maze had been designed and grown by Pete and he was very proud of it. It was very complicated and only Peter, his wife and his three daughters knew the way out. Max, at four years old, Pete’s son, had been lost a few times in the maze but he was never frightened and he just waited until he was spotted by the farm drone which guided him out. Pete and Paul’s security and privacy was therefore guaranteed.

The twins set off. Once in the maze they speeded up so that the closely following security guard was left behind. The twins had escaped - again. The twins heard an anguished “Bloody hell, not again, Sir. If you can hear me, Sir, this was never part of the job description.” The guard could remember previous visits when he had to be rescued. Paul shouted back “Try your best Franz, if you can find the way out one hundred euros is yours”

"It was five hundred Euros last time, sir."

"Rising cost of living, Franz."

The twins chuckled and carried on through the maze.

Paul continued. "I am being told of rumours that you are planning to take the throne."

"Not again. Can’t these people see that I am a farmer and spring time is the worst time for me to leave the farm and start a coup? There is too much to do. Now a possible coup in winter might be a possibility but I could never ruin Christmas, Marg would never forgive me. In any case, if I had wanted your job I would have given you something I had grown that was poisonous and undetectable years ago. Nobody would have known it was me."

"It’s not funny Pete. It could mean that both of us might be in danger, me from those that want me out and you by those who don’t. And I think they see you as a safer long term bet as you have a son and heir.

"And I hate the thought that Max might one day have to take up a job he does not want. If the job had more to do with trains he might be keen but otherwise no. But I know the dangers Paul and I take them seriously too. Have you any idea who is behind this. I have got something in the greenhouse that could make them ill for a couple of days."

Paul shook his head and tried the stop the grin appearing.

"What about a reshuffle at court.? Send the prime suspects to far off places as ambassadors or court representatives. The UK is a decent job, a nice house and invitations to posh dos at Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately for them there won’t be a coronation for a few years now Cousin Charles is king."

The twins were very distant cousins of King Charles III and they enjoyed reminding people of this. They had both been invited to his coronation which they had enjoyed hugely. Pete especially enjoyed the journey home via Amsterdam and its flower marker where he bought hundreds of tulip bulbs in the colour of his country’s flag.  The bulbs were now open in one of his fields where the view from the air was amazing.

"Yes. I had thought of that and you have confirmed my thoughts. Thank you."

"I think underlying this is the fact that you are a strong and devoted ruler who gets involved and makes his own decisions. They know that if I was Grand Duke I would dither, be very weak and the place would soon be in the control of courtiers and administrators and the army, God forbid."

Paul nodded. "Yes, I think a reshuffle might be my first step after discussion with the one’s I can trust. But you do understand why I had to come personally and rule you out?"

"Of course and no offence was taken. Now there is something you can do for me. Violetta is sixteen soon and she wants money to spend in Paris.  She wants to go alone – absolutely not - and she refuses to go with her mother.  Their relationship is a bit tetchy at the moment. Mind you if you changed the constitution she would make a very good Grand Duchess, she is so bloody determined and bad-tempered everyone would run away in fear. Anyway, have you someone discreet and personable at court who could be a companion and escort and offer her security.?And perhaps Franz, if he ever gets out of the maze, might enjoy a few days in Paris as a reward as a distant but discreet security guard. I think there is a boyfriend involved, a dratted social media boyfriend, and it is possible he might a part of her plans. Might Franz be trusted with a bit of my potion to make the possible boyfriend ill for a bit? And to make sure Violetta does not visit tattoo parlours – her arms are covered with transfers. At least I hope they are transfers."

Paul laughed. "I think we can arrange something. Thank you Pete for everything. You have helped me make up my mind what to do next."

"Thank you Sir, let us talk again soon". And Pete gave his brother and ruler a deep and respectful bow.

Suddenly they were out of the maze but there was no sign of Franz.

"I’ll find the drone to spot him." Pete hurried off. "Another drink Paul?" he called as he disappeared round the corner of the greenhouse.

"Yes please but not one of your greenhouse specials."

"OK".

About the author 

Judith Skilleter is new to writing fiction after a long career in social work and teaching. Her first children's novel The April Rebellion, has recently been published. Judith is a Geordie, who settled in East Yorkshire forty-five years ago and is married with four grandchildren 

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