the train

by emily de villaincourt

the stars looked down and laughed as albert chased the lights of the train down the mountain. the train made frequent stops, seemingly at every little village or hamlet on the mountainside, but the stops were brief, and albert, try as he might, could never quite catch it before it moved on to the next little stop. he ran and ran. sometimes the lights of the train were so close as to almost blind him, but he just could not catch it. until, just as he was about to give up, he finally caught it as it slowed down around a particularly sharp bend of the mountain. gasping, albert pulled himself up the steps of the train as it began to pick up speed, where he immediately came face to face with a conductor, a ruddy faced fellow with an impeccable little conductor’s mustache. “destination, sir?” the conductor asked albert. “vienna, of course,” albert replied. “where else would i be going?” “very good, sir.” the conductor produced a ticket from his capacious pockets, took albert’s money, and punched the ticket and gave it to albert. “the club car is three cars down, sir, if you would care to refresh yourself. the first class seating is in the two cars beyond the club car.” “thank you.” albert picked his way through the third and second class cars to the club car. the club car was empty except for a woman seated by herself at one of the tables. to his astonishment albert recognized her as the celebrated countess de c————— ! the countess, who was wearing one of her signature ermine wraps, looked up at the gawking albert. “a bit chilly in here, isn’t it?” the countess asked albert. “won’t you join me?” albert quickly obliged, and at a signal from the countess, a waiter appeared and brought albert a glass of wine. if albert was afraid of not being able to amuse the countess, his fears were for naught, for as the train careened down the mountainside the countess kept up a constant flow of elegant chatter about the duke of this and the baron of that, and various renowned artists and composers, as if albert , like herself, was an intimate acquaintance of theirs, and did not know them only by sight, or by seeing their pictures in the society pages of the weekly newsmagazines. albert was transfixed. he was not called upon to open his mouth, only to nod occasionally. the time flew past. then, just as the train was about to reach the foot of the mountain, albert caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the club car bar. he had been transformed into a curious little green creature, halfway between a frog and a kitten! the countess noticed albert’s confusion. “ah, my friend,” she told him, “i am truly sorry i have had to put this spell on you. i can, however, remove it, if you could see your way to doing me a service.” “i am your your disposal, dear madame,” albert managed to squeak. “vey well then.” the countess had a small purse on the table in front of her and she reached into it and took out a couple of brightly printed brochures. she placed them on the table and by hopping up on to the table albert was able to read them. “some of my friends and i,” the countess commenced, “ have taken an interest in the fortunes of this company. “ she tapped the brochures with her long fingernail. “the great austrian-african railway, which proposes to connect vienna with cape town in the near future, with the most advanced comfort and convenience. if i restore you to your previous form, my friends and i would take it as a great favor if you would consent to become the agent of this concern, in the stations of this mountain, and in the plains extending to sarajevo.” so it is, traveler, that if you find yourself on the train, or waiting for the train, or running to catch the train, you may encounter alfred at any of the stations or cafes along the route, attempting to promote the prospects and sell the shares of the great austrian-african railway, with various results. you will find him always happy to accept a glass of wine or a bock, and to discuss the events of the day.

everything happens for a reason

by nick nelson

jonah woke up. he woke up because he was a human being and humans observe a regular cycle of sleep and wakefulness. when jonah was asleep, his mind inhabited a world which only existed in his own brain, and which was only subject intermittently to rules. when he was awake, he inhabited a world occupied by billions of other people and was subject to a great many rules, many of human invention but many more which were not, and in fact, his body occupied this world even when he was asleep, and was subject to its rules. one of these rules was , that he was helpless against anyone who might choose to bludgeon, stab, or shoot him . but in practice, nobody ever did, so he got up every day and had his breakfast of grapefruit juice and apple and cinammon flavored oatmeal before going to work. this was another rule, which applied to many, though not all, humans - that they had to go to work. jonah was one of those unfortunates that it applied to. after finishing his breakfast, jonah left his apartment and descended seven stories in an elevator which had been recently inspected and found to be in compliance with the rules of the city building inspection department. he walked half a block to the bus stop. the bus had a schedule, but because of traffic, weather, and other variables, did not adhere to it very well. waiting for the bus, in the morning and later in the evening when he returned from work, could often be the high or low points of jonah’s day. if the bus was on time or no more than ten minutes late, both in the morning and at night, that meant it was a good day. if it was more than ten minutes late, especially if the weather was bad, both times, that made it was a bad day. if it was on time one way and not the other, that was usually a wash. but consider - if it was late in the morning, that meant he had the whole day to wonder if the day would turn out to be a complete disaster. but if it was on time in the morning, then he could get through the day figuring, how bad can it be? on this particular morning, it was raining lightly, and jonah was approached by a woman - not a bag lady pushing a shopping cart , but just an ordinary looking woman not quite old enough to be his mother, and she told him a long sad story. (insert story here) “so, do you think you can help me out?” the woman concluded. “excuse me, this is my bus,” jonah told her, as he folded up his umbrella. the bus was only two minutes late! that was very good, especially for a rainy day. jonah arrived for work with plenty of time to spare. he was almost never actually late for work, even if the bus did not arrive at its scheduled time, and when he was early he usually went straight into the store and relieved ernestine, the night manager, and began getting ready for the morning rush. when jonah had first started working at the store, ernestine had appreciated his punctuality but now she took him completely for granted, and on this morning she just said, “nice day, huh?”, grabbed her coat and handbag and left. jonah made the coffee and checked the ice machine and the pepsi and mountain dew and other drink dispensers. he checked to make sure there were plenty of packets of beef jerky on the counter. one thing jonah had learned on the job and that still kind of surprised him was how much beef jerky people ate. the morning papers had been delivered and jonah picked one up. the front page said - plane crash in sumatra - 256 killed. a man came in and bought a bag of potato chips and a couple of energy drinks. jonah often made small talk with the customers, and he asked the man, “where’s sumatra?” “how the fuck do i know?” the man responded and took his change and left. another customer came in, a regular, who bought large quantities of scratch tickets and took his time selecting exactly which ones he wanted. jonah asked him, too, if he knew where sumatra was. “not around here.” after much thought, the man bought his usual sixty dollars worth of tickets and left. a woman came in. she seemed to wander around the store a bit aimlessly and jonah kept his eye on her. she finally selected a can of dinty moore chicken stew. as she approached the counter jonah thought she looked familiar. she could have been the sister of the woman at the bus station who had told him the story. maybe it was her! (jonah was not much for noticing or remembering what people wore). maybe she gotten on the next bus or even gotten on the same bus behind jonah and he had not noticed. in any case, she showed no sign of recognizing jonah, and she carefully counted out the money for the dinty moore chiken stew from a fistful of dimes, nickels, and pennies. “too bad about those people killed in the plane crash in sumatra,” jonah observed. “yes, it is,” the woman agreed. “but everything happens for a reason.” “i guess,” said jonah. “would you like a bag?” “no thank you.” the woman put the can into her coat pocket and left. everything happens for a reason, thought jonah, looking out at the rain. that makes sense.

__________
__________


it's you
you write
though lost for words
you hide your world
between the lines
between the lines
you hide your world
though lost for words
you write
it's you


©nooshin azadi
(may 8, 2019)

i can't go on, part 2

by nick nelson

part two of two

to read part one, click here

i started having nightmares. mostly about woodrow wison, but sometimes about j edgar hoover or john the baptist, or even eugene debs or the kaiser. in the dreams i had a silver money clip shaped like the statue of liberty and it was filled with 10,000 bills and whatever happened i could not lose it. my work and play began to suffer. i was whitewashing the north fence after school but roger did not think my brush strokes were as tight as they might be. and in little league, i had trouble snapping off my curve, and in one game i only struck out thirteen batters and one kid hit a home run! even though it was a lucky one that went through two outfielders and rolled into mrs wilson’s yard. and in school, mrs johanssen asked me who invented desidirium and i said jefferson davis. the real answer was alexander graham bell, and all the kids laughed. my face got red and mrs johanssen told me, you should not get so angry, edward. edward, or eddie, that is what they called me, even though it is not my real name. one day woodrow wilson came to town, looking to be re-elected, and he was to give a speech down at the ball field, and everybody in town put on their sunday best to prepare to go down and hear him. the crowd would be warmed up by the famous evangelist jenniifer jezebel johnson, whose fiery preaching had brought salvation and ecstasy to millions across the land. we were just about to climb into roger’s station wagon to go down to the field when i felt in my pocket to make sure i had my statue of liberty money clip - and it was gone! i told roger i had forgotten something , and he said, all right, eddie, but hurry up because we don’t want to be late for mrs johnson’s fiery preaching. i ran upstairs to my room and sure enough, the money clip was not there. it could only mean one thing - al and dave had caught up with me, and i had to get away fast! i crawled out the window and down the old apple tree and started running across the corn field to the highway, with a thousand scarecrows laughing at me and a hundred dogs barking. when i got to the highway i hitched a ride with a floozy named emmeline lou - i had heard of girls named emmy lou or emmeline but never one named emmeline lou - who was on her way to las vegas to join the circus. a circus! the perfect place to hide, as i could become a clown! i asked emmeline lou if the circus was hiring clowns, and she said, you can try, kid, but you might be better off starting out with the old army game - now you see it, now you don’t - excuse me, ma’am. but is this fellow bothering you? why no, not at all, we were having a very pleasant and informative conversation, until you intruded on it. and if you do not mind my saying so, you look like a bit of a ruffian. you really should not tie the knot on your necktie quite so tightly, it is not very attractive. be that as it may, madam, this fellow has escaped from protective custody and i have a warrant here … oh you do, do you? do you know to whom you are speaking? suddenly shots rang out from behind the hot dog stand … and the doors of the bus station flew open … a great dark wild blew through the station … don’t anybody move! somebody shouted… but everybody moved… and in the confusion i somehow made my escape… and i have been running ever since… because nobody knows my name … or who i really am… who am i?… am i little eddie practicing his curve ball behind the barn… or the hitchhiking clown by the side of the road … or the savior of the human race... running… always running… until the highway to hell is washed clean by the rain of remorse… by the tears of forgiveness… end of part 2

i can't go on, part 1

by nick nelson

part one of two

i can’t go on. i can’t take it any more. it’s too much for me. i can’t go on living a lie - pretending to be something i am not. maybe if i tell you my story you will understand. i am not who you think i am. i never was. sometimes i wonder, is anybody really who you think they are? you see somebody walking down the street, they look like they don’t have a care in the world, nobody is biting them on the leg or hitting them on the head with with a baseball bat or a two by four, and they are not biting anybody on the leg or hitting anybody on the head with a baseball bat themselves. but deep down inside they might be wrestling with a thousand demons, like jonah in the whale. anyway, if i tell you my story, maybe you will have a better idea of where i am coming from. from day one, when i was born, i was not who people thought i was. my dad was somebody you never heard of, but he was the most famous and powerful person in the world. i wouldn’t say he exactly ruled the world because he had a couple of buddies that ruled it with him, they were a trio or what they call a triumvirate, if you are familiar with that word. you could look it up in the dictionary, it’s in there. you have never heard of my mom either, even though she was the most beautiful woman in the world and a big movie star. the trouble all started when i was born. my mom wanted frank, my father, to make a will leaving me his share of the business. but al and dave, they were the other two guys in the triumvirate, they were not too happy with the idea, and frank, my dad, who was an easy guy to get along with except when he got really mad, told them, guys, don’t worry about it, we will just take it one day at a time, which is what he always said. but shortly after i was born it became quickly apparent that i was some kind of natural born genius that was born to rule the world singlehanded if nothing got in my way. seeing this, al and dave got scared. especially al. al had a kid, teddy, that he had high hopes for. teddy was just kind of a lump, with not much energy , and he played video games all day. not the kind of person to grow up to rule the world, like me. so al and dave put their heads together and started scheming up ways to head me off at the pass as it were even though i was still just a little kid. peggy, my mom, tried to warn frank when she heard from al’s and dave’s wives what they were up to, but he just laughed it off and said we will just take it one day at a time, which is what he always said. peggy decided to take the bull by the horns and take matters into her own hands, so one night she drove her and me down to the train station in her silver and black rolls royce. we got on the train and rode through the night to a little town where she figured al and dave would never find me and left me with an old couple, roger and millie, who owned a candy store on main street in million miles from nowhere u s a. when peggy was leaving she told me to behave myself, and then , just as she was almost out the door, she peeled a couple of 10,000 bills off the roll she always carried and gave them to roger, and said, just make sure he doesn’t grow up to be a sissy. frank was not too happy when he found out what peggy had done and he started neglecting her and took up with a gold digging floozy named lily and even being seen around town with her. peggy fell into a deep depression and her career suffered and she could only get parts in biker movies and she ended up shooting heroin under a bridge with the bums. as for al and dave, they were not satisfied that i was gone, not by a long shot, and they still had a few bullets up their sleeve. they went to see the gypsy, and they paid the gypsy a hefty sum to put a curse on me. i started living the life of an all-american boy with roger and millie and playing baseball and going fishing in the old creek, little suspecting what destiny had in store for me. i just knew that i was special, the child of fate. then the gypsy’s curse kicked in. i started having nightmares. part 2

the happy person

by nick nelson

harold perkins - nobody is ever really named harold perkins, but let it go - walked down the street, carrying a styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a small white bag containing a raspberry danish in the other. he walked down the street as his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had walked before him, except that he did not carry a briefcase, only his coffee and danish, and he did not wear a tie. harold was a happy person, he had a job he could not describe, a wife he despised, and two children, a boy and a girl, who despised him, but he just loved being alive, and being able to drink coffee and eat danish pastries and pizzas and cheeseburgers, and watch reruns of cheers and seinfeld and star trek . when harold entered his office his two colleagues marcia diaz-watkins and griff johnasen were waiting for him, each with their own coffee and pastry - a plain croissant for marcia and a jely donut for griff. “and how are we this morning?” harold asked them with his trademark smile. “not too bad,” marcia replied, “considering that the planet is in flames, and that women’s rights are being rolled back all over the world. and of, course, today is the big day.” the big day? harold wondered. what big day? but he just asked griff, “how about you?” “pretty good,” griff answered, “except for the cells marked at guantanamo for hillary and obama still being empty. “ he took a sip of his coffee. “and today being the big day.” “help me out here, guys,” harold said, “but what is this ‘big day’? i must have missed something.” “at noon today,” marcia told him, “the entire populations of the states of new york and new jersey are being relocated to madagascar for a year’s sensitivity training, after which we will all be assigned to soybean farms in kenya, mongolia, or north dakota.” “of course!” harold exclaimed. “i have been so busy i forgot all about it.” he patted his pocket. “and i forgot to bring a toothbrush.” “i think they will provide you with a toothbrush, harold,” marcia assured him. “then i guess we are all set then,” harold smiled. “ i guess there won’t be much point in doing anything much this morning, except empty the wastebaskets.” “same old harold,” griff said. “smiling through it all.” “why not?” harold asked. “whatever happens, happens. as long as we get coffee, ha ha.” “speaking of which,” griff added, “does anybody know who got the coffee concession on this deal?” “i heard it was either starbucks or dunkin donuts,” marcia told him. “we will find out,” said harold.

the garden

by horace p sternwall

genevieve and hermione lived in a big old house by the side of the road to nowhere. the house had once held swarms of aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews but now only genevieve and hermione were left. they had lived a long time and were running out of money. they could not imagine selling the house because they had never lived anywhere else. they could not imagine renting rooms - assuming anyone would want to rent them - because the guests would want some kind of service or at least attention. there was a wide empty space behind the house which had always been called “the garden”, although they could not remember anyone actually doing any gardening in it, not even in grandmother’s day. “perhaps,” genevieve ventured, “we could rent out the garden.” “you mean,” hermione answered, “to someone who would come every day and work in it and make a lot of noise? they might expect us to invite them in for tea or whatnot.” “no,” genevieve said. “ do you remember how uncle isaac used to say the garden would be a perfect place to bury bodies, and aunt jennifer and aunt kathryn thought that was so funny? and uncle lawrence said it was a great place to hide buried treasure? well, perhaps we could put an ad in the gazette, or on craigslist, to rent the garden out to anyone who wanted to bury some bodies or buried treasure - or anything at all.” “but surely ,“ hermione, who considered herself the more levelheaded of the two, protested, “we can not put the words ‘bodies’ or ‘buried treasure’ right in the ad. might that not attract the notice of the authorities?” “we could just say. ’space to bury objects’ and leave to the imagination what is to be buried.” “i suppose it is worth a try,” hermione agreed with a sigh. they placed the ad. it read, “space available to bury large objects. discretion assured. “ they received no written or texted replies after two weeks, and had almost forgotten about the ad. then one afternoon they were sitting on the front porch as it was not too gloomy a day, when a dark blue van pulled up on the road in front of the house. the van had no lettering or pictures on it, but looked as if some had been painted over . a man got out of the van and approached the house. he wore a dark suit, a bright red tie, and he wore a blue baseball cap on his head ,which both ladies thought looked quite ridiculous but of course they did not say so. the man tipped the baseball cap to them, just as if it had been a real hat. “are you the owners of the plot of land suitable for the burial of large objects?” “we are indeed,” genevieve answered, “and we are at your disposal to discuss terms.” the man moved on up to the porch. “my name is jonathon walker,” he told them. “and this is my story.” “it will not be necessary to tell your story,” hermione assured him. “but i have a story all prepared,” jonathon walker protested, “and like to consider myself a forthright and up front fellow.” jonathon’s story, which he recounted after being invited to take a seat on the porch, was that he was a dealer in tea, and.that he had developed a new blend of that beverage, which had not found favor with the world, but which he was confident was just ahead of its time. therefore, he had a large box of this tea, both in bulk and in teabags, which he wished to bury in the ground until its time finally arrived. he concluded his narrative, by asking the ladies if they would like to sample the tea, as he was always interested in feedback and constructive criticism. how could they refuse? they would be only too happy to sample the gentleman’s wares. accordingly he produced three teabags, and sat and chatted amiably with hermione - they found common ground in deploring the insanity of the modern world - while genevieve prepared their three cups. jonathon walker only pretended to sip his beverage, and when genevieve and hermione tasted theirs, they expired immediately, as the tea contained the strongest poisons from the remotest jungles. the man who had called himself jonathon walker then set to work. his name was not really jonathon walker, but walter hargraves, and he had been born in wichita falls texas during a violent snowstorm. he had spent his life searching for the lost treasure of patheta-ru, last emperor of the lost continent of mu, and had been attracted to genevieve’s and hermione’s advertisement by the prospect of discovering that treasure, left behind by another respondent to the ad. it was a long shot to be sure, but had, he thought, been worth a try. taking a shovel from the back of his van, he proceeded to spend the rest of the day until nightfall digging up the garden, with, as the reader has no doubt surmised, no results. he had brought a large box with him, as part of his story to be used as necessary, and after giving up on finding the treasure, he placed the bodies of the two ladies in the box and covered it with the dirt he had dug up. he then returned to the van and proceeded on his way. a year later, two small flowers sprouted in the garden, one white, and one red.