Toy Houses

By Erica Kaufman

My mother kept the dollhouse in the divorce. My father had built it, in his woodshop in the basement, crafting the tiny staircases with delicate detail, making miniature faces out of stubby beige blobs.

He’d wanted it, the dollhouse, to stay where it was, for me to play with when I came to visit. I liked the way that he often hid surprises in there, some new piece of furniture that he’d created, like a tiny piano in the sitting room, or a stack of books for the little girl doll’s nightstand. It made it feel like they were real, the little wooden family, and that they were, in their daily lives, adding to their home just like real people did.

As for my mother, she collected lamps. Similar to the dollhouse, it seemed everyday I came home to a new lamp. They stood there, on the fireplace mantel (tiny lamps, with miniature shades), on the end tables (stained glass lamps, antiques), even cluttering up the kitchen table (lamps that looked like candles, with their glass flames) to the point where we had to start eating dinner on the living room couch.

“Pack it up,” my mother said to the movers, pointing to the dollhouse. “But be careful. It’s a one-of-a-kind piece.”

The way she said it, said “one-of-a-kind,” convinced me that, even after everything that had happened, she still loved my father.

But what did I know?

I was only eight, after all.

I had already packed up the interior of the dollhouse, as my mother packed up our lives, unstitched us from the world we had with my father. I wrapped the little dishes and the little furniture and the little people in tissue paper before I packed them, assuring them that this was not a coffin—I would see them soon. I left behind the little girl doll, fashioned in my likeness, with her painted green eyes and black yarn hair. I sat her on the windowsill so that she could watch for when we came back, so that she could tell my father that we had come home.

My mother fought about that dollhouse. I didn’t understand why—it was my dollhouse. Shouldn’t I get to decide where it lived? Maybe it was because we were leaving the house, not my father. We had to make a new home, not my father.

“I’ll build you another one,” my father had said when he lost the fight. “So that you can have one to play with here.”

He used to say that nothing made him happier than to see me play with my dollhouse—he said, love, maybe I can’t give you everything you’ll ever want, but whatever I can give you, whatever my hands can create for you, you’ll have.

I couldn’t imagine that he could make another one—not one with so many intricacies and details as my dollhouse.

But I left the little girl, just in case.

My father never carved lamps for the dollhouse. I wondered if it was because he didn’t want to look at any more lamps. I wondered how my dolls felt, in their darkness.

My mother remarried, a man who owned a cat that scratched my dollhouse, long claw marks in the side of the house, as if some terrible monster had tried to attack. I told my father. He looked surprised.

“I didn’t think you even played with your dollhouse anymore,” he said. And I knew that I was too old then to play with my dolls, but I wasn’t too old to love the dollhouse, was I? Too old to look in and marvel at their lives, at the way that little wooden pieces seem to strategically move, like chess pieces.

I wondered then, after the incident with my cat-stepbrother if my father ever found the little girl doll that I had left on the windowsill. She disappeared one day, I guess. When I came over to spend the weekend, she no longer sat there, her little jointed wooden legs hanging over the sill. But I didn’t ask and he didn’t offer up the information. He never remarried and he never made me a second dollhouse.

“Do you want to donate that to the children’s hospital?” my mother asked, before I left for college. “It might be nice.”

It surprised me that, after fighting so hard to keep the dollhouse in the divorce, she was willing to give it up. I dated a guy in college who studied psychology and he speculated that the fight hadn’t been about the dollhouse at all, but rather about me.

I broke up with him. I don’t like being analyzed.

I didn’t give the dollhouse away. I told my mother that if she was sick of seeing it in my bedroom, I could bring it over to my father’s. He had filled his house with custom furniture, crowding the upstairs rooms with ornate armchairs, sleek bookcases, elegant vanities. People came over often, as if the house was a showroom, pointing and saying, yes, yes, I’ll take one of those.

I took it with me when I moved out for good, after college. When I go back to visit my mother, she shuts the door to my old room, says that it’s too messy, that she hasn’t had the chance to clean up. I peak in. It’s crowded with lamps. It’s piled high to the ceiling with lamps. A layer of glass, a tangle of wires. It looks like she’s just been throwing the lamps in my old room, with reckless abandon.

My father got a big job, furnishing the house of a celebrity who wanted custom pieces. He smiled a lot. He seemed happy. He said that he wanted me to have a baby so that he could spoil a grandchild.

I always wondered what my stepfather thought of the lamps. They seemed to amuse him, their accumulation into a rapidly crowding house. I often found him, just after dusk, standing in the living room and flicking them on and off, on and off.

“Isn’t it remarkable,” he’d say, flicking on and off, on and off, “electricity?”

In a way, I suppose it was. The girl next door has a dollhouse; I saw it when I went over to have tea with her mother. It’s extravagant, but plastic, with a pulley elevator to the second floor, and real, working lights. Even a piano that plays a little tune when you press it. I wondered, where was the imagination in that? What about the whistling that my father used to do when I pretended to have the daddy doll play the wooden piano? The little Swan Lake tunes he remembered from his sister, the ballerina.

My mother, in her old age, took up smoking in the dark. She sits there—I’ve seen her do it—in the dining room, lamps off, ashes falling on her lap.

When my father was in the hospital, dying, he confided in me that he’d seen the little girl doll after all. He’d looked at it often, kept it in his nightstand. He’d understood why I’d left it. And just before he’d died he’d handed it to me, unearthed from the pocket of the worn robe that the doctors had been reluctant, for some reason, to let him wear, and told me to go home.
 

​

Erica L. Kaufman lives in Providence, Rhode Island in an old, tilted red house with her needy cat and her less-needy husband. Originally from New Hampshire, she earned her BFA from Emerson College in Writing, Literature, and Publishing and her MFA in Writing for Young People from Lesley University.

* * *

Caprice

By John McMahon

​

She closed the portfolio which outlined her surgery schedule with each procedure mocked up as a digitized image of what her body would look like after. It was no last minute hesitation, only a savoring of what was to come. These were the final steps of her journey and the first of her metamorphosis. She was to become Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich Grozny.

The need to become the 16th century Tsar had swollen in her for many years. Planted as a seedling one day when she was caught by the pull of an actor’s mocking stare from a film poster dating from 1947, Ivan the Terrible, hung over the actors head in Cyrillic styled English. What singled him out from all of histories atrocities to be saddled with a title so condemning, she wondered buying a ticket.

That film led to books, and books to museums, museums to pilgrimages; Moscow, Novgorad, Astana, Kursk. She learned Russian and studied the vast output of his writing. The difficult sounds she made while reading the obsolete words felt true in

her mouth. She studied maps of his campaigns against the Tartars with racing blood. She ordered models of his architectural commissions and understood perfectly blinding the men who designed them. She spent most of her money and free time learning everything there was to know about the despot, but feeding the thing inside her didn’t satiate the compulsion; it nourished it.

She adjusted the red tonsure cap over her stringy, shoulder length hair just as the Tsar wore his in the portrait by Victor Vasentsov, towering and gaunt, the ideal of her future self. Dressing and grooming in his style had eased a certain amount of the wanting but for years she knew she could never be complete until she inhabited his dimensions.

Psychiatrists and health counselors had to be seen before any surgeon in America would consider taking on the 243 operations required to complete the transformation. Had she always felt like a man trapped in a woman’s body? Did she have a history of relationships with women? They couldn’t understand it was nothing to do with sex, being feminine or masculine. It was specific; she needed to be everything that Ivan the Terrible was.

Pounding the desk of Metropolitan Cosmetics head surgeon after being denied permission she vowed. ‘I’ll rip your tongue from its root and fill your skull with burning embers.’ In perfect Vasilyevich fashion.

She searched abroad and easily found surgeons in every part of the world willing to take on the full scale restructuring of her 5’4” frame and mold it to the severe lines of Russia’s most notorious leader. She selected Dr. Slobodeniak initially based on his clinics reputation, and was confirmed in her decision when during the interview he knew about Ivan. They discussed the gross mistranslation of the title ‘Grozny’, how it should be translated as awesome, or formidable not terrible.

The doctor flew her to his clinic on Isla Margarita in Venezuela at his own expense. Weary at performing nose jobs and filling out bikinis he was excited about the challenge; therefore he would charge her nothing. The surgeries, her stay at the clinic, all expenses for a year were on him. They signed a contract. Afterward, equally for a year; she would appear in public exclusively at his request. They would become famous together.

In his private office Dr. Slobodeniak found his patient standing rigid before a large painting.

‘Senorita?’ 


‘Who is he?’

‘You must know. That is the great Simon Bolivar. He liberated South America from Spanish rule.’

The name was irrelevant; the eyes of the lean, majestic figure spoke directly to her core.

‘I’ve been mistaken.’ She told the doctor. 

​

John McMahon is a part time antique exporter, some time educator and full time writer. He has been living on the banks of the River Kwai in Thailand for ten years.

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* * *

​

The Lake

By Tim Miller

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We’d planned it for year. It was after we saw the lake. We took a week off and got lost and ended up at the lake. We had time to talk, and time to think. We could stop. We sat by the lake and could sleep. Could wake. Could open our eyes and dream, with no before or after. A day of that, and we knew we were ready. That whiteness. The gold chains came in the mail today, The welcome gift, they’d said. We had nothing to sign. Only these chains, to be welcomed when we left.

The old place has been empty for more than a week. It’s already our old place. Empty but for the bed, and what we’re wearing today. We finished the food last night. We were happy we both decided to keep our boots here. It snowed like hell last night. We’re buttoning our coats now, and can’t do it fast enough. This is the last time we’ll see the place. The last time we’ll walk out the door and take the trash from the kitchen as we go.

Outside, the drifts are up to the windows of parked cars. The black man across the street is stunning. He stands in the middle of the unplowed road. He is a dark stone in a bed of white. Good luck, he calls to us. He does not realize what he says. The TV suggests people stay home from work, and that is what he means. But we won’t be coming back here.

Our feet are already wet. The snow has nowhere to go but down our boots. Every annoyance is nostalgic already. No ploughs have come to any of our roads. Buses are stopped at angles further ahead. Pedestrians wander in the street like children on a playground. The cold is terrible, but no one is running. Today is slow, and that is enough. Cars are buried on either side of us. Humped in silence. Certainly along the sidewalk are many gifts—dog droppings, garbage, pumpkins from October blown and rolled about, toys—that won’t see the sun for weeks. That we won’t see, ever. The white cat in the window we always pass is there too. White on white, she squints and smiles on the sill. It is her world. We’ve taken off our gloves. Numb hands are warm hands. All things we do together.

The main road is barely one lane, from four. It’s taken a half hour to get here. Cars are double-parked beside mounds of white, and from every direction snowblowers are heard from one block, two blocks, three away. We pass the building for the last time where I once saw its wall of ivy wave and sway in a spring wind. Rippling like water, flowing like the lake. Nearly there. Now it’s heavy and crusted. An old man slouched in his huge white coat. We’ll be free of all of this, in only a moment.

The subway steps are still too snowy to be slippery. Too few people have even tried to make it to the trains to melt enough of it away. So few of the usually hundreds of rushed or cautious feet. Down below, in the corner at the foot of the steps, like a man in white standing with his arms open, or a bird in beautiful wingspan, is a drift that came down the steps. It settled in the middle of the night, and spread. It whitens the drab station’s black-greys and pale-yellowsand dulled-silvers. Everyone who passes it smiles to see it there. So unexpected, a jewel in the drab. 

Finally on the platform are actual puddles. Puddles left by those with melting coats and bags and boots. Melting hats and beards. Melting ring fingers. Those we recognize from our usual commute probably don’t notice that we are without bags at all. If they searched our coats it might surprise them not to find a wallet. Not a phone. Not a pen. Not one used tissue, not even on me. If they noticed such things, they would find it strange that once on the train we aren’t listening to music. That I’m not reading and underlining. That neither of us slept, as we went. These were all things we used to do. All past things. All things that would have made today’s morning—slow, and with everyone soggy—easier to deal with. Music or sleep or words. All past. A sigh at what we used to do. We didn’t even talk. At least aloud. Instead we touched foreheads. We ran our fingers up the others’ arm, and smile for the future. Or the chink of the chain around our wrists.

We emerge from underground into daylight on the bridge overlooking the river and the city getting nearer. Everyone gasps, even we do. No one has ever seen snow like this. It has started up again. The city, its buildings, have disappeared. The water below a nothing. Outside is only whiteness. The brief glimpses of the bridge seem the shadows of some dark shape far above us. Nothing is solid. Nothing is seen. The wind is furious but we can’t hear it. The the movement of the snow and the movement of the train but the silence of both gives stillness to everyone, and it’s only now we see the lights have gone out in the train. It is still fully lit, with falling white—

And everyone jumps as a window blows open, at the far end of the train, and the couple sitting there holler and jump to the other side. Its windows blow open too. We breathe, and down toward us the windows all blow open and let in the wind, and let out everyone’s alarm, and as we clasp hands we realize it’s happening much sooner than expected, and we know there will be no last day, and in a moment we are swept up and our arms burn and become white with feathers and our necks burn and extend and become white with feathers, and our mouths become hard and dark, our feet dark and webbed, and the chain links us as we assume ourselves out in the air, white as swans are, deep in the storm and white with it, the lake getting closer now. 

​

Tim Miller's work has appeared online and in print in Parabola, Mungbeing, and The Burning Bush. Other notes from history and mythology are frequently posted at wordandsilence.com. His narrative poem "To the House of the Sun" will be published by S4N Books in 2015.

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* * *

​

The Runaway

By Lee Morgan

   “You put that money back and I won’t tell. Hear me,
Jessica? I said, if, . . . .”       
          “I heard you,” Jessica said, frowning at Brenda, feeling
the heat rising in her neck and checks. She knew that she had
colored and hated it. Unlike Brenda, who had chestnut colored
hair, brown eyes and a healthy looking complexion, Jessica had
red hair and a complexion which revealed her every emotion to
the world.
          "I could be gone from here tonight and you'd have all our
riches to yourself. Then you’d get to say what you always say, 
that ‘she's always been difficult’."  
          Jessica turned her gaze from her sister to the open window.
Everything exciting to Jessica was out there and calling to her.
          "You got that look again, Jess, maybe you just need a     
boyfriend."
          "Brenda, you like it here, this, this, . . . . no life.
Work’n in a feed store six days a week and you just accept it.
No friends or excitement. No nothin’. And no, I don’t need a
boyfriend. It might be okay for you, big sister, ‘cause you
don't seem to want nothin’ for yourself. This family business
was Dad’s idea, not ours. You’re almost seventeen; don’t you
have hopes or ideas?”
          Jessica watched as Brenda inserted fresh carbon paper into the 
counter sales receipt book and aligned it with the box of 
pencils she had just sharpened.
          “We live next door to a feed and seed store,” continued
Jessica, “with a dirt road at our front door and a river at our
back. The only travel’n we’ve done is from the front door of our
house to the front door of this store. We ain’t been nowhere but
this store, Brenda.”
          The back of the store’s interior was dark and windowless, 
except for a square ten inch light in the center of the rear 
door. After sunrise each morning, the door was opened to let in 
sunlight and any ventilation which was usually meager. When 
Brenda and Jessica were younger and the door was closed, they 
would play the game of trying to catch dust mites floating in 
the shaft of light streaming in through its window.
          The persistent drone of a vehicle moving slowly somewhere
off in the distance could be heard through the open front door
and windows. Probably a truck, thought Jessica.
          In Malone, an unincorporated town in Arkansas, only four 
of seventy-eight families had cars and one family still used 
mules. Malone was primarily a farming community. Trucks were far 
more practical and numerous.
          Jessica looked down at the open cash register, then at her
fist still holding the cash. With resignation, she replaced the
crumpled dollar bills and closed the drawer.
          Jessica came from behind the counter, walked over to the
the screen door and peered out. She stood silhouetted against 
the brightly sunlit fields across the road listening to the
birds, cicadas and the steady sound of the truck engine which
was somewhat closer now.
          “You think that could be Dad and Mom?” questioned
Brenda, who was now standing at Jessica’s shoulder.
          “Nah, they said they’d be gone two nights so I guess it’ll 
be late tomorrow mornin’, like Dad said. I can’t think of any
reason for them to rush back.”
          “Well, I can think of a reason,” said Brenda. “Mr. Prescott
brought a handbill to Dad which said, a new grist-mill company
was comin’ to Polk. They operate a steam engine that can crack
corn and roll barley to order. They make cornmeal, graham flour
and sell the same stuff we sell. The handbill is on Dad’s desk.
I read it after they left. Dad told Mom that he had to sell the
business and go to work for them.”
          “Why does he have to sell?” asked Jessica.
          “‘Cause Polk is only nine miles away and Dad told Mom that
he couldn’t match their prices. He would lose his customers to
them and he would be stuck with all this unsold stuff. This is 1920,
Jessica, modern times and big business.”   
          Jessica contemplated a moth on the outside corner of the
screen door. You are free to leave and go anywhere you want, how
lucky you are, she thought. A breeze nudged a paper wrapper in
the road and played on the vegetation across the road. The sound
of the truck had stopped. Brenda turned to speak to her sister
but saw her staring thought-fully into the open field.
          “Take care, Jess,” said Brenda, as she stepped around   
Jessica. Pushing open the screen door, she walked into the
sunlight and let the door slam shut behind her. At the house she
pulled open the screen door and reached in just far enough to
get something. She took a step back allowing that door to slam
shut, too.
          Brenda headed back toward the store carrying a sweater    
and suitcase which Jessica had never seen before. Then Jessica 
noticed that Brenda was wearing a dress for the first time ever. 
          Jessica stepped outside to meet her sister, but Brenda 
continued past her toward a truck parked just beyond the store. 
Jessica was sure that this was the one she’d heard earlier. 
Brenda opened the passenger door and put in her belongings. 
Leaving the truck door open, she walked back to Jessica.
          Standing before her little sister, she gazed into her eyes,
then hugged her. Turning away, Brenda walked back to the truck,
whose engine started as she closed the door. Without delay or a
wave, the occupants drove away.
          Jessica watched the truck recede into the dust and
disappear around the bend in the road. She stepped back to a
bench beneath a window of the shop and sat down. She sat
transfixed, not knowing how long.
          The movement of a butterfly landing on the old hitching
post near her brought her back to the moment. Jessica watched as
it slowly opened and closed its wings. It flew off and up from
the post only to return again, flapping its wings. Once again it
flew from the post, but this time to within inches of Jessica’s
face and then away.
          Her eyes followed the butterfly until, . . . . . 
          Jessica ran back into the store and over to the register. She rang a “NO
SALE”. The drawer opened. The cash was gone.

Lee Morgan is a retired IBM employee who did technical writing. He is now free to pursue his passion to write fiction. 

* * *

Saxon Drive

By Kay Poiro

​

     You can tell a lot about a person by the quality and frequency of their mail. Mrs. Harris at 186 Saxon gets Cat Fancy and circulars from the insurance companies that advertise on television. I’ve seen Mr. Pibbles before, so the Cat Fancy isn’t a surprise. I also know her husband is dying. How come? Because I know insurance companies. Where there’s the promise of death, they circle, every now and then swooping down to test the meat with their greedy little beaks. Mr. Keene at 184 Saxon gets unmarked cardboard boxes four times a month, usually on Mondays. Unmarked boxes are either catheters or dirty toys. Mr. Keene is in his seventies, so I figured it was catheters. Then again, it could’ve been toys. He might not pee so good, but he’s still a man.

     Saxon Drive is my route. The houses on my route are the good houses. Tiny yards. Wood fences. American flags. My friend J.B. calls it “Stepford Drive”, but J.B.’s just jealous. He delivers south of Saxon where he has to carry pepper spray and drive a special van instead of the open buggy. I walk Saxon Drive. Everybody waves at me, too. On the days when it’s hot enough to wear shorts, Mrs. Harris waits for me with a cold juice box. “Booker, darling,” she’d say. She has a weird accent like Frasier from the T.V. “Booker, take a juice.” After I thank her, she waits for me to stick in the straw. After the first sip, she goes back inside.

     155 Saxon received mostly Piggly Wiggly flyers and scam refinance offers addressed to Kat Jacobs. Kat was an uncommon name so I figured it was short for Kathleen or Katherine. Katherine Jacobs was my favorite name. She did get regular Roamans catalogs, so I figured she was somewhere between size fourteen and thirty. Not that it mattered. Even though I’ve never had a girlfriend or been on a date, I knew what I liked. Kathy Bates or that black lady from The View. Roamans women. Like J.B. always says, “Bone is for the dog. Meat is for the man.”

     If Katherine had a car, I never saw it. Sometimes I’d catch a tiny blue sports car parked in 155 Saxon’s driveway. It was a foreign job- so teeny that it looked like a toy. I half expected to see a humungous silver key sticking out the back. Once, I saw a man come out of the house. He threw open the front door and stumbled out onto the sidewalk. His clothes were rumpled like he’d slept in them. Before he jumped in his toy car, he yelled something and stuck up his middle finger at the house. Was he Katherine Jacobs’ son? Maybe. Or maybe he was her lover. I didn’t know but I knew that nobody in the pre- oatmeal hours deserved the finger. Especially not my Katherine.

     Katherine and Booker. That’s me- Booker. I used to hate that name. Before the greasy cool dude on 21 Jump Street, the only other Booker on TV was the janitor on “Good Times”. Or maybe it was Bookman. But sixth graders don’t care. Bookman was fat and so was I. Homeroom was up two flights of stairs, so first bell would always catch me in the hall. After Mrs. Robles gave me a talking to, she’d let me in. As I walked to my seat, Jimmy Finn would fake-whisper, “Booger Bookman’s late again. What’s keeping you, your friends or your fat?”


     I didn’t have many friends, but my fat wasn’t gonna make me late this time. This time, I had a plan. It was Friday and I was feeling lucky. I’d march up to Katherine’s door and ring the bell. When she answered, I’d hand her the catalogs and say something smart about “door to door service.” She would laugh and try to tip me and I would tell her that postmen don’t take tips. That’s when she would put her hands on her hips and joke, “Well, I have to pay you somehow.” And that’s when it would get good.

     That morning, I combed my hair extra nice. I’d run out of Dippity Do, but lucky for me, J.B. let me borrow his hair stuff. It was called Royal Crown and it came in a red cardboard can with silver lid. He called it “grease”, but when I put my fingers in, it felt more like cold bacon fat. But it smelled sweet and since I’d also run out of my favorite soap, I counted that as lucky, too.

     My lucky streak continued when I found Saxon Drive deserted that morning. Even Ms. Harris with her juice box and funny accent were absent. At 155, the wind-up car was gone. Yesterday’s mail was still on the mat. I walked to her door- head up, shoulders back. J.B. always says confidence is key. If Mrs. Harris were watching, she’d just think I was offering a friendly reminder for my customer to take in her mail. I knocked on the door. No answer. All the curtains on the windows were drawn. My hand touched the doorknob. If Mrs. Harris were watching now, she’d probably call the police. But I’d come too far. I’d borrowed Royal Crown and pressed my good uniform. Booger Bookman wouldn’t be late again. No sir. Booger Bookman would be right on time.

**
     The heavy curtains made the house dark, so I had to feel my way through the entrance. Duran Duran was playing from the back of the house. I don’t know which one; I’m not a fan. If Katherine Jacobs liked 80s music, she must be younger me. My school years were more Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. Then again, we could be the same age, but she likes all music. Either way, it would be fine. Maybe we would even catch a Duran Duran concert someday. I heard they’re still touring. Strong relationships are built on compromise. All these thoughts were tripping over each other when my foot hit something. As soon as I looked, I wish I hadn’t.

     She was face down, arms and legs twisted. I knelt down and touched the back of my hand to her cheek. Her face was still warm. It was also a mess. But even through the blood and the purple, twisted nose, she was an angel. My angel. I used my thumb and index finger to stretch open one of her eyes. Just above the whites was a half moon of green. At that moment, I became aware of two things. Number one, that stupid Duran Duran song was on repeat. Number two, her air conditioning was broken. Sweat bubbles popped up on my nose and at my hairline. Suddenly, J.B.’s hair grease didn’t smell comforting anymore. It smelled like it was making fun of me. “Booger Booker,” it sneered. “Late again.”

     But I wasn’t late. I was the very first to see Katherine Jacobs lying dead in her kitchen. I don’t think she had a heart attack. She was a Roamans woman, but certainly not what J.B. called “heart disease thick”. Whatever had stolen her had done before I got there. My finger traced the outline of her full bottom lip. It was still pink and moist. My own lips closed as I bent closer. Nothing open-mouthed or dirty, but a kiss just the same. As I leaned down to kiss her again, something caught my eye. It was her phone. It was blinking with an unread message. Now that I was Katherine’s protector, I could read it, right?

     Srry about last night. Idk what got n2 me. U got time today?

     It was Mr. Tiny Blue Car. Suddenly, I forgot about the kiss. My fingers flew.

     Sure. Dinner at my house?

     But I wanted to be sure, so I said:

     Ur driving the blue car, right?

     Yikes. I should’ve kept it simple. Anybody with half a brain would see through that. When the phone buzzed again with my answer, I had to smile. He didn’t have half a brain, after all.

     Then I kissed her again. A final goodbye to my favorite customer. I put the phone in my pocket and left boldly through the front door. The street was bright, quiet, and deserted. was halfway to Mr. Keene’s when Mrs. Harris appeared on her front porch. She smiled and waved. I smiled back. And why shouldn’t I? It was Friday and, for the first time ever, Booker had a date.

​

Kay Poiro is a former arts and entertainment columnist for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Her recent fiction can be found online here and here. She is also a screenwriter and internationally produced playwright whose plays have been performed across the U.S. and around the world.

* * *

(R.I.P) R.F.B

By Emery Thanathiti

​

“I’d like to thank you all for taking the time out of your busy lives to come here today in respect of my mother, Lilly Chen.

Eh em. Uhm… for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Kira Bliss Johnson. Unfortunately, I’ve been uh working overseas for the last few years so I’ve rarely had the chance to be around… To be honest, I did not find out about Lil-I mean my mother’s death until yesterday.

But this speech isn’t about me. I might be bad at speeches and I might not have had the time to prepare an eloquent goodbye, but I am still her daughter. I know her best.

Lilly Chen... was a lot of things. She was intelligent. She was kindhearted. She was a reliable wife to my father and loving mother to me and my sister.

Her one goal in life was to set up a tutoring school for children of all ages. Middle school is tough, high school is tough, and hell, even college is tough. She wanted to help your kids to get through our school years with ease. She wanted to help us get the top grades, get into the top colleges in the world, and eventually find the best paying job before going on to become successful adults.

I remember when I was around nine years old, my mother and I took a trip to Italy. There she decided to pursue the study of religion while teaching English to the Fathers and Sisters of the church. They were so grateful for her help that they asked her to stay longer and so she did. She stayed in Italy for six months, not to travel or to shop, but to teach and learn.

We, her family, couldn’t be any prouder of her.

However, as much as she will be missed, I know she would not want this. I know she would not want anyone crying over her. She’d rather see you all smile and laugh as you reminiscence the great memories of her.

So let’s grant her this last wish, shall we? Let’s give her a big smile as we send her off. That way… that way she will be buried with the image of our happy smiles… forever.”

Hello, Lilly, it’s been four years since I’ve last seen you. Did you know I’ve changed my name from Kira Lee to Kira Bliss Johnson?

Yeah, mother, you remember the Johnsons? They took me in after you left me in a foreign country with only twenty dollars in my pocket. I had no family, no friends, and no place to stay. How could you? You told me there is no such thing as true friends. You said I’d never have anyone except for you. And yet, you left me to rot. And the Johnsons fed me, raised me. Loved me.

But I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here to talk about you, to remind you of all your sins. Yes, I will always remember everything you did to me. I can assure you, you’ll never rest in peace. Karma isn’t forgiving.

Lilly Chen. You were so stuck-up. You were so self-centered. You only married my father so that you could be that ‘strong, independent, rich man’s wife.’ But you weren’t that at all, and to relieve your stress from your house-wife job, you’d hit me until I was sprawled on the ground then continue to kick me until I threw up a little. My salvation came when you disowned me except you’d take it out on my five year old sister and seventy year old grandma instead.

There was this façade you enjoyed putting up in front of people. You’d act like you were kind and intelligent. You’d offer to tutor their children for close to no money. Then 6 months later you’d double their tuition, and then you did that again the 4 months after that, and then the 2 months after that. Eventually, when it became too much for them, you’d encourage the children to blame their parents for being poor.

I remember when we went to Italy. You stole my aunt’s college tuition to travel there. You kept a your “I’m a good person” image, you told people you were there to help them, and so you started teaching the Fathers and Sisters. But it’s obvious, you know, that you were giving the priests handjobs behind those closed doors. Daddy was never the same when he found out about what you did. The sisters must have known too and that’s why they started treating us like we were the Devils. 

You abused and hurt us all. We’re all so much better off without you around.

I told grandma a long time ago that you were better off dead. Thank God, Death finally came for you. Thank God, we can finally smile in relief.

Can you see us? We’re sending you off with big smile. We’re all wearing big fat lies as we as send you off with tears. Truth is we’re so fucking relieved. Truth is they’re tears of joy. We have never been happier.

Rest Forever, Bitch.

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Emery Thanathiti is currently a junior at Iowa State University, her major is English with an emphasis on creative writing and Linguistics. She was born in Bangkok, Thailand to a Thai father and a Chinese mother, because of that her first language was "pigeon English." She has been reading and writing since she was little and has, in recent years, decided that she shall write seriously in order to inspire other non-native English speakers to not be afraid in pursuing the study of English or a career as an author. 

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