The flame had ben an inferno. It had been a hungry flame whose greedy tongues had licked with a ravening need, devouring anything in its path. Once love had been a holocaust --- and now?
Now there was a pile of ashes. The dead torch, the dead flame, rested within an exhausted and weary peace that was a dull grey blot on the surface of dreams that had never grown up to become love's potential.
There was no restless wind song to fan any hidden embers. The embers were gone. They were not dust for the wind as there was no wind. Emptiness lay sleeping in vanquished hopes and dreams.
A bridge that had been broken, a bridge that had once burned brightly, it now disintegrated to ash. The ash sat patiently and waited for the emptiness to awaken from a dreamless subconsciousness and build a bridge from love's exhausted ruin. A sigh from a wind that did not exist even in a faded memory built the shadowy vapor of an illusionary beam. Stronger than a woman's stolen heart it was; a heart that no longer held onto a fantasy. Now the torch had burned down and the ash painted the flame with its careless architecture.
Standing there, looking on, a man with a wheelbarrow was waiting to collect the dust of the ash, as if it were a sawdusted festival for fools. He piled the ash-dust into his wheelbarrow and smiled a lazy
smile. Ash-dust he collected from the heart of a woman who had once loved him. It flung itself, protesting the cruelty of his arrogance. He laughed as he saw the formation of the ash bridge.
He hauled the ashes of the flame, the end of the torch. She no longer loved him and yet the pain was there, a knife thrust that he could look upon and admire. He didn't dare touch the pain even though he was the one who had caused it. That pain could have cut the soul he didn't have to confetti.
Away from the ash bridge, a bridge he could not cross, he walked. He was breathless and stooped over because of the heavy burden that he pushed. The man, who had broken another woman for his vanity, didn't
turn around to see the ash bridge swaying to a complaining tune: her memory of his lies.
He pushed the wheelbarrow towards the Bitter End where he flung it, laughing, into the waiting darkness to feed the hunger ---- no flame, only the emptiness of what-might-have-been or never-was-or-could-be.
Then he turned to vanish into the shadows where he hoped to find another victim --- another flame to feed upon --- another fool to carry torch until it burned down to ash.
finis
EMBROIDER MY LOVE
By Cid Angel
Copyr 2000 Cynthia Helen Summers
Written in the early 1970s.
Unedited, written as it was written then
( I'm trying to excuse my atrocious grammar! )
He had came to her from the ad she had placed in the local throw-away
paper: "WANTED: Plain garments to embroider upon. Wear a garden instead
of a shroud. Reasonable. Call Susanna Richards 856-3734 for more
information."
Not that his had been the only head that had popped in to see what she
had to offer. But in his case she was willing to do more then just
embroider some pretty story on his jeans. She would have been all too
willing to peel those tight Levis from that tanned form. She smiled to
herself at that vularity. Gazing down at the chambray shirt he had left
she sighed. How does one go from a yellow work shirt to the body it
graced w/ such perfection? Damn! The thought of him standing like some
adolescent wet dream in front of her was almost too much to take. With a
sigh she turned back to work.
Mrs. Sanders came in to collect the soft woolen baby blankets. She was
an unpleasant woman, her raven dyed roots not covering the ancient
crone-grey very effectively. Her dull parchment skin was a cross
between a corpse and a vulture's. A nonstop abyss that formed her mouth
spat out squeeks at the hapless seamstress. Susanna cringed. She felt
like telling the bitch to stuff it but that would massacre business.
" This is a fine job." The witch said. " Just what Penelope will LOVE.
She is expecting twins, you realize." Her hand went to her face in
shock. "Why she's just a baby herself! And just the other day I was
saying to Nancy Morton that..." On and on she rattled but Susanna was
already lost in a pipe dream. Occasionally she would turn an attentive
eye at her customer and stutter out "Oh how interesting, yes, no" or
some such word to make the old bag think that she was listening. One of
her favorite daydreams found her snoring to the sound of Mrs. Sanders
voice. Finally to break off before the daydream bcame a reality she
turned to the woman. "That will be twenty dollars and seven-eight
cents." She rang up the bill and presented it to the woman. Susan was
handing the woman her change when HE walked in.
Was that lightning that struck? Shock waves flooded through her
system, especially in the region of her thighs. Her mind began playing
teeter-totter. "It's all right. Keep yourself together girl. He isn't
really that much of a fox. Practice self-control." The other part of
her mind screamed out "Wow! What a stud! To hell with self-control,
dignity. Let those glands be satisfied. What a bod! Go for it. If you
pass off this opportunity...." Out loud she said "I've got your shirt
done." She tried to sound very professional, very nonchalant. Was she
shaking?
He appraised her and thought to himself "Foxy dame. Always did like
redheads. Wonder what she's like in bed?" Out loud he said " Thanks.
How much is it? " She almost said " Your body" but caught her tongue
in time. "That will be two dollars and thirty four cents." He grasped
for the right words to say. Almost shyly he said "You have beautiful
eyes, like grey clouds." This broke the ice and her laughter put him at
ease. After she closed the shop that evening she took him upstairs to
the apartment.
He stayed for dinner. They casually strolled together to the bedroom
where she gave him the dessert other men only dream about. How
delicious was the sweetness of her body. Her loins fed his hungry
appetite, keeping them both satisfied, spent until the sun cast a fickle
jealous ray on their churning forms.
Two weeks later heexplained about his relatives. They owed him money
and he did not like to have her support him. She protested, but with a
swift kiss goodbye he fained promises of an immediate return. He had
been gone a week when she had the dream.
"Mark?" Her voice called out. He stood smiling with tenderness,
reaching out for her. "I love you Susanna." His voice was cool waters.
She responded to his wooing caress, but where was he? In dismay she
felt a soft fabric enclosed between her fingers. Opening with caution
her fingers she saw what lie between: soft champagne embroider yarn with
a deepblue pattern woven in. In panic she tossed it from her "Mark?" A
frantic voice cried out. This time there was no answer.
Susanna woke up startled. The moon was a silent mandala clothed in a
virgin's gown which poured a ghost's ray onto her pillow. When she
slept now it was dreamless.
The next morning Susanna slipped into a soft lavender cotton long dress. Pale blue, maize and vermilion embroidered flowers adorned the sleeves and collar. Gazing at the clock she swore. The art gallery she had volunteered to hostess would open in fifteen minutes. A quick brush through her hair, a fast slash of cinnamon lip gloss and she was out the door. Two minutes before opening a breathless but breathtaking cool-eyed redhead was setting up coffee pots and cookies. "This is a picture by Victor Walters." spoke a very collected woan in a lavender embroidered long dress. "Very nice. " said the middle-aged business but he wasn't talking about the artist's modern art. "Especially the embroidery on the hem." Susanna, realizing where his comments were directed, laughed. "What a funny comment, sir! There isn't any embroidery on my...." She glanced with a mirthful smile at the hem of her gown. There in bright colors was the finely stitched portrait of a young man with soft brown hair, deep sea blue eyes who wore a yelow chambray shirt with meaningful embroidery on it. " Mark! " she screamed.
finis
CUT THROUGH STEEL
Copyr 2000 Cynthia Helen Summers
1-11-2000
He was sitting in his office on the 19th floor when the winds came.
He didn't need to look out the window on that screechy, dreary day as
the noise told the story. There was no curiousity, only dread. Would
it be HIS building this time? Where would the building end up?
There was always new construction going on in Gray Town. Some
business conglomerate was always flexing its symbolic steel and glass
phallic up to the sky. That was the systematic order of things, not
merely in Westgrove but in thousands, possibly millions, of cities
world-wide. If there was a vacant or rundown lot to be found on the
planet there would be someone somewhere who would want to build the next
Babellian skyscraper. It's just here in Gray Town the winds helped
thngs along...
March winds, winter winds for California. Screechng and shrieking,
whining winds, a nagging fishmonger of a housewife ranting winds. Nasty
enough to cut through steel, those winds.
The little nondescript gray-eyed, beige-gray-haired, gray-suited thin
man looked at the window with dread Gray leaves, void of autumn riot,
flew through the air, protesting their stubborn sleep-wretched
awakening.
Clovis Brown shuddered. He knew that the wind would take the
building he lived in. He wondered if other office workers felt this
nameless, paralyzing fear.
His life was boring. His wants were simple. There was nothing to tie
him here to Westgrove or his job in its business district of Gray Town.
Is that why the wind singled out certain buildings, took them because
the men and women who worked there wouldn't be missed? He had no
family, not even a cat or bird to go home to.
Clovis went back to the cubicle where he worked. He didn't know if
any of his fellow employees were as frightened as he was. He was alone
as he walked down the hall from the water cooler. He went back to
concentrate on whatever business was at hand. He had heard the wind
howling its late winter/early spring complaint before. He had felt none
of this uneasy feeling before and nothing had ever happened before, had
it?
At 5 p.m. he rode the elevator down to the first floor. Exiting the
building into the blustering wind he leaned forward as the wind snatched
his hat and ran away with it. He ran to catch it but he wasn't able to
keep pace with the mocking wind that had torn it off of his head.
Behind him heheard a woman's scream. He stopped and turned around. It
was Eunice Bragg, a small nondescript beige-haired and gray-eyed little
wren of a woman. She worked in the cafeteria on the floor below his.
She was pointing at the crack at the bottom of the building.
Forgetting the hat that was now finding its way down anoher street
away from him, Clovis walked back towards the building. At the bottom
of the first floor was a clean crack --- that went through the entire
building. Clovis now knew there had been a legitimate reason for his
dread. The wind had cut through the first floor -- and had then lifted
the building and set it down in another city. But where? In a moment
he had his answer.
A young man, fresh off the farm, tall and muscular, pushed the flaxen
blond hair back fro his marveling sky blue eyes. He was shaking his
head in amazement as he spoke to Clovis and Eunice ( who were both
shaken also but from something besides amazement ).
"It's a wonder how fast they put up these skyskcrapers here in Kansas
City, isn't it? Why just yestersday they'd completed the foundation!"
In Westgrove, California a man walked out of a skyscraper onto a city
street. He looked around him and shook his head, his mouth gaped open.
That morning he had gone to work, as usual, to his job in a gray,
nondescript building in a small city not far from Chicago.
He hadn't paid any attention to the winds. It was ALWAYS windy where
he lived, where he used to live. A grayhaired, gray-eyed, gray-suited
man, he walked out onto the Gray Town street --- and disappeared into
the crowd of other office workers who were leaving work for home, dinner
--- or, as in his case, a good stiff drink.
On a street off of a main street in Kansas City, Clovis Brown was
standing in the lobby of a rundown rooming house being handed a key by
the clerk behind the desk. He shuffled his way up to a room, opened the
door and walked in. He unloosened his tie, took off his jacket and
walked over to the bed. With a sigh, he sank down into the lumpy
mattress and proceeded to fall asleep.
The next morning he awoke before the gray dawn, put on his jacket,
picked up his hat ( which had found its way "home" to him ) and walked
out the door --- into the hallway of his rooming house of of Main Street
in Westgrove, California.
He took a bus to the office in the new building that stood in the same
location that the old building had been in. The new building, gray steel
and mirrored glass, looked the same as the old building. But Clovis
wasn't fooled. He knew things were different.
He took the elevator up to his new office ( that looked the same as
his old office ) on the 19th floor. There was a new man in the cubicle
next to him, though he was as invisible and nondescript looking as the
former man who had worked there and as invisible and nondescript looking
as himself.
"Howdy." spoke the gray-haired, gray-eyed, gray-suited man.
"I'm Horatio Thinwhistle. I just got transferred her from Cowpasture,
Illinois. It's a small city not far from Chicago."
The man was smiling at Clovis. "He's probably thrilled to be out of
that cold weather." thought Clovis.
"I'm sure you'll enjoy life here in Westgrove." Clovis smiled a gray
smile. "I hear those winds back there in Chicago can cut through
steel."
finis
THE FISHERMAN'S DAUGHTER
Copyright 2000 Cynthia Helen Summers
written 2-8-92
Growing up in a pigsty is not the best place for a homely young woman
to grow up. If a woman is ugly ( which I am ) it is to her best
advantage to be born in a palace. Then she can be decked out in
diamonds and pearls, buttons and bows, paraded to poverty-stricken
princes as a prize worth winning. This, sad to say, was neither my luck
or my fate.
I was born in a pig sty to a quiet, gentle fiserman and his consantly
nagging wife. According to my parents the pig sty was a HUGE step down
from their last residence. Mom had been Pope. I kid you not. Before
that,, Mom had been King. Mom had been Emperor. She still thinks she
is. Since she lorded over the rest of any of the hapless universe she
happened to be around she wasn't happy with her life in the pigsty.
According to my mom our current straits were the fault of a fish, an
enchanted fish, flounder to be exact. Dad had caught the flounder one
day and the fish had begged him not to fry him up for dinner. The fish
had claimed to be an enchanted prince. Dad say he asked the fish for
cottages, castles and palaces. He didn't need to say Mom was never
satisfied. Everyone in the family knows that. She thinks she's God and
evidently, when the fish was asked to "make her like God" my parents
found themselves back in the pigsty.
Mom, of course, put all th blame on the fish. It was that dumb
flounder's fault. She had bullied and nagged Dad into tryng to catch
theflounder and at least get out of the pigsty again ( "Remember that
nice little cottage we had? THAT was better than THIS hovel!" ). Dad
went out every day but he never caught the flounder again. He made
enough of a living with the fish he did catch to feed and clothe us,
though not quite enough to move us to a new address.
One day Dad was ill with a nasty fever. My brothers were off
adventuring. My sisters ( both younger and while not pretty, they
weren't ugly like I was ) were married and living in pig stys down the
lane from us. Mom was badgering Dad about catching the flounder. I
felt Dad's forehead. He was sweating profusely and he wasn't going
ANYWHERE. I turned to Mom.
"I'll take the boat out for Dad and see if I can catch some fish for
dinner."
"Without waiting to listen to Mom yell like the fishwife she is about
the lazy, shiftless, worhless lout she had married I was out the door
and down the muddy path leading to Dad's tattered and patched boat.
The sea was gray and stormy, the sky black in the afternoon. I knew
I'd rather drown in its murky depths than face the wrath of my Mom if I
returned home fishless. Flounder or no flounder, Mom would expect me to
bring home dinner for the family.
I had cast out the nets and not caught any fish ( with the exception
of a small, silvery one, half the size of my smallest finger. It was
too small to count so I had thrown it back ). Discouraged, wet and cold,
I tugged at the nets again.
Suddenly one of the nets felt heavier. I pulled it up and dragged it
over the side and into the boat. Inside the net was the most glorious
fish I had ever seen! It was a big fat flounder! I looked at it,
hoping against hope that it was THAT flounder. It peeked up at me, as
it were, gasping for breath.
"Please throw me back." it said. "I'm an enchanted prince."
I grinned and hugged myself, excited by my luck. I'd caught Dad's
flounder! Wouldn't Mom be proud? Through my mind raced thoughts of wat
I could wish for. I'd wish for that nice little cottage that Mom was
always complaining about. Nah. If I wished for THAT Mom would still be
complaining.
I thought again. I could wish for wealth and beauty. THAT would be
killing two birds with one stone. Mom was always griping about how ugly
I was and that no one would want to marry a poor and ugly woman. Mom
was always saying what a trial and a burden on Dad and her because I
would be stuck at home with no prospective suitors in sight.
I was tempted to tell the flounder jus WHO my parents were but Dad
said the flounder didn't particularly care for Mom. Actually, I haven't
met anyone who particularly cared for Mom ( including her children )
except Dad. So I kept quiet about that. The flounder seemed to know
about it anyway ( smart fish ).
"How's your Dad?" he asked
"Dad's sick right now but I'm sure he'll be feeling better soon. Until
he gets well I plan to be out here fishing for him." I replied. The
flounder didn't ask about Mom.
I thought maybe I'd ask the flounder for some good fish to take home
for dinner then changed my mind. The flounder made his pitch about a
wish. I mused about it for a moment and then made my wishes.
"I'd like to be rich. I'd like to be beautiful. I'd like a man to love
me for myself even though I'm rich and beautiful." I smiled and then
added, as an afterthought, "Oh yeah, -- and
I'd like a few big fat fishes to take home to my folks for dinner."
The flounder frowned back at me. "That's FOUR wishes." he protested
"You only get ONE."
I frowned back at him. If I was rich without beauty I'd be married for
my wealth. If I was beautiful without wealth I'd end up a beautiful
discontented hovel-dwelling wife and who'd love me for myself? I was in
a quandry.
"Let me think about this for a moment. Is that ok?" The flounder
nodded.
The sea got stormier. I got colder and wetter. Water sloshed over
the sides of the boat. I would probably have thought more about the
afternoon's miserable weather but I was too busy thinking about what
great wish I was going to ask. The flounder, by the way, was enjoyng
the water that swished puddles in the bottom of the boat where he was
lying.
I looked down at the flounder. Then it struck me. OF COURSE there
was something majestic about him! He was a PRINCE and not a prince of
the watery deep. At just that instance I knew what my wish would be!
"I wish for your enchantment to be broken."
I like to think the smile on my face that he saw at that moment made me
look less ugly then I knew I was.
My dad's wretched excuse for a fishing boat was suddenly dwarved by
its surroundings. It was inside of a huge palatial ship.
Beside me in Dad's little boat was the handsomest man I had ever seen.
I sighed. There was no need to tell me that sitting next to him in the
boat was the homeliest woman HE had ever seen. I looked at him and
lowered my eyes. I began to tremble. He was truly breathtaking.
Taking my hand, he helped me out of the boat as if I were the
grandest, noblest lady on earth. We were approached by the captain of
the ship who bowed low to the prince.
"Your Highness," he said. "We are yours to command."
I tugged at the prince's diamond-encrusted crimson silk sleeve.
"Oh, your Highness," I said, in a teeny-tiny voice. "Do you think you
could lower my Dad's boat over the side of your ship so I can go home?"
The sky was still gray and stormy. I wasn't worried about getting
home. I'd been out in seas as stormy as this.
I added "And if it is at ALL possible would there be a decent-sized
fish I could take with me so Mom won't nag that I didn't catch anything
for dinner?"
The prince was amused. He looked at me and he LAUGHED.
"So much for good intentions." I thought, bitterly.
If I hadn't done what I'd felt was the right thing to do I could have
at least asked the former flounder for some fish to take home to the
family. The prince took my weather-worn hand in his.
"You,"he told me. "Are the most beautiful woman I have EVER met in my
life!" .
I was flabbergasted and confused. I asked to see a mirror. My wish
was the command of everyone on the ship. I looked in the mirror that
was offered to me and looked away, fast. The same old ugly mug had
stared back at me.
I looked up at the prince with sad eyes. How could he be so CRUEL?
Here I had wished for his enchantment to be broken and he was making fun
of me!
He looked at me with eyes full of love and a quiet understanding about
my plight. "I'm not teasing you." he said. You ARE beautiful to me."
"I'm ugly." I retorted, bluntly.
He nodded in agreement. "You aren't the prettiest woman in the world."
He then told me his story.
"I know too well the price of loving beauty with no heart of goodness.
I was once in love with a very beautiful princess. She told me she
would marry me if I brought her pearl necklace back to her. She threw
it over the side of this very ship. Young and rash and believing myself
in love with this cold-hearted vain creature I threw myself over the
side.
"I wasn't a very good swimmer. I would have died. SHE would not have
cared. The fish your father feeds your family would have feasted on my
bones.
" But a kindly and wise mermaid caught me in her arms as I was drowning
and she placed me under an enchantment.
" I was doomed to grant the wishes of all who would catch me until one
whose soul had true beauty would selflessly forfeit their own wish and
wish for my enchantment to be broken. "Thus I have learned the lesson
of true beauty: beauty born of goodness in the soul; and false beauty:
beauty that rots and decays with pride and self-worship."
It was much later that we found that he had been missing and presumed
drowned a thousand years ago.
His vain beauty had done quite well for herself, on the surface. She
had married the richest emperor in the world ( a jaded and ugly old man
). In between the lines ( I assume ) they made each other miserable.
Yes, I married my prince. We live in a magnificent palace on the
other side of the sea across from where my parents live.
My husband was gracious enough to buy my sisters and their husbands,
as well as Mom ad Dad, small castles with a few servants to wait on them
( the ones who wait on Mom are mercifully deaf! ). I'M the one who
insisted they live on the OTHER side of the sea.
We go to visit them, along with our children ( we have several. My
husband is not only a loving man but a very, very passionate man as well
--- which is very, very nice! ), every year or so.
We get cards and letters from my brothers who are now living in
exotic lands with the princesses they found while off adventuring.
And we all lived happily ever after.
finis