Ordinary Magic

By Caryl Sills

​

In the spring of 1950, when I was eight years old, Zaideh Abe was up to “K” in the encyclopedia. If I had been behaving especially well—helpful to my mom and her mom, Bubbeh Bessie—he’d let me sit beside him on the couch, open the chosen volume, and take a turn reading out loud. If I stumbled over a big word, Zaideh helped me sound it out.   

I remember one rainy, dreary Sunday when we read about a magician named Harry Kellar, who was internationally famous at the end of the nineteenth century. The article mentioned his most popular stage illusions but gave only a few details about how he did them. It was little more than a list headed by his top acts: The Levitation of Princess Karnack, The Vanishing Lamp, The Floating Head. I thought the latter sounded like the silliest of his tricks and told Zaideh so.

“When I was little,” I explained, “I used to believe in magic, but now I know it’s all just trickery. That’s because my dad took me to a magic show where a lady in a box was sawed in half and put back together again, but she wasn’t hurt one bit. Dad said she was scrunched up in one end of the box, and that’s why she didn’t even get a scratch.” 

“Oh, my,” Zaideh Abe said, feigning horror, “I certainly agree that’s not real magic. “That’s only someone performing tricks for money. But I can assure you there’s real magic all around us, and even if you can’t see it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Can you see happiness, sadness, anger? No. But you can see the consequences—a smile, a tear, a frown. Remember when Bubbeh Bessie summoned Freileck? What else could that be but magic?”

Freileck was Jake Finklestein’s cat. I knew that when it went missing, the whole neighborhood searched. For two days, Jake sat on his front steps and cried while everyone else peered into cellars and garages or poked under porches and every bush in every yard. But no Freileck.

On the third day, Bubbeh Bessie got up from her afternoon nap and walked to Jake’s house. “Can you guess vhat I have in my apron pocket,” she asked little Jake in her slightly accented English that mispronounced “w’s.”  

Then she gently pulled out a tiny, furry thing who protested with a loud Meowww.  

“We searched every inch of everywhere for that cat,” Zaideh Abe told me now. “He wasn’t anywhere. So how come your bubbeh all of sudden found him?”

“Luck,” I said. “He was going home just as Bubbeh went outside.”

“Nonsense,” Zaideh said. “When Bubbeh Bessie saw how sad Jake was, she used her magic to summon Freileck home. Maybe no one saw her work her magic, but the result proves she did. I can tell you for sure that luck is one thing, but magic is quite another.”

“Stop filling her head with silly stories,” my bubbeh said as she came into the room from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She was only five feet tall and as round as Zaideh Abe was thin and all angles, and she was always smiling.

She extended her hand to me. “It’s lunch time,” she said. “I made beet borscht and there’s black bread fresh out of the oven to smear with sveet butter.”

I hopped to my feet and was following her into the kitchen when she turned half-around towards Zaideh Abe. “If I could do magic,” she said softly, “I could have vhisked avay the family I left behind before those Nazi murderers… before….”  But Bubbeh Bessie didn’t finish her thought. Instead, she leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “No more sadness,” she said. “I’m here and you’re here and my foolish husband is here and ve’re all hungry. So let’s eat lunch.”  

One day, years later after Zaideh Abe had passed away and I was in high school, I joined my mother and aunt to watch Bubbeh Bessie make kuchen for the Yom Kippur break-fast. We took notes from the moment she began to knead the yeast dough to the final sprinkling of cinnamon sugar over the fat pastry rolls she’d stuffed with apples, coconut, raisins, and chopped nuts.

Bubbeh never measured anything, so we decided to watch her bake in order to quantify in standard measurements what a handful of this and a pinch of that was equal to. Her amazing desserts were our family’s legacy, and we wanted the recipes to live on as long as there was a sweet tooth to savor them.

That afternoon as the kuchen baked and a buttery, yeasty aroma filled Bubbeh’s kitchen, I had the sudden thought that maybe Bubbeh Bessie could do magic after all. Not the spectacular kind that rescues lost cats or whisks people across an ocean and out of danger, but the everyday kind of magic that transforms ordinary things like flour and eggs and apples into an almost otherworldly experience.

I know Zaideh Abe would agree.
 

Caryl Sills is a retired English professor who has turned her hand to fiction after many years of writing essays and literary criticism. Her short stories have been published in print and online, including First Edition, Mobius, Blue Lake Review, and Black Fox Literary Magazine, among others. I am currently working on a novel that explores the post-war politics, prejudices, fears, and optimism of American society in 1948.

​

* * *

Unwanted Developments

By Suzanne Sprague

​

Mona entered her third-grade classroom expecting to see her parents and her teacher, Miss Pleany. Instead, Mona found Todd seated at a desk, chubby hand grinding a pencil, eraser end down, across a slip of paper.

“Where’s everyone?” she asked.

“They had to go get you one, too,” Todd replied, flicking his gaze to a small mound of fabric on the edge of his desk.

“What’s that?” Mona asked.

“Shut up,” Todd muttered towards his scrubbing project.

Mona’s parents and teacher arrived before Mona had to think of anything more to say.     

“Sorry, we’re late,” said Miss Pleany. “I needed your Mom to help me with your size.”

Mona’s dad gave her a quick squeeze before strolling over to pat Todd on the shoulder.

“Mona,” Miss Pleany continued, “We thought that maybe Todd could borrow your dad, since he doesn’t have one of his own.”

Normally, Mona would be jealous, but Todd’s obvious misery made it okay.

“You are both here today because we need to discuss some apparel choices of a personal nature.”

Mona looked down at her Big Bird tee shirt. Nothing wrong that she could see.

Miss Pleany crouched at desk level in front of Todd. “Both of you need to start wearing bras. Mona, you are developing prematurely, and Todd, your excess weight is settling in your chest. You need to minimize the protrusions.”

Todd’s sniffled and pulled his arms up to his chest, as if to conceal the source of his humiliation.

“Todd, you will thank me later if you lose weight and still have taut mammary skin,” insisted Miss Pleany.

Mona’s mom helped Mona into hers while Mona’s dad assisted Todd. Afterwards, Mona was relieved that she couldn’t see Todd’s bra through his shirt. Maybe no one could see hers either.

Todd’s paper had slipped to the floor. Mona picked it up and read the faint, but still-legible, words. Somebody kill me. Handing it back to Todd, she said, “If anyone catches you in that bra, they probably will.” Todd nodded in defeated agreement.

Todd exited the classroom first. The hallway teemed with kids goofing off before sport activities and after-school programs. Todd’s wide legs propelled him into their midst. With unexpected fluidity, he pulled off his shirt, revealing the bra. “Get it over with,” he cried. “Just kill me.” A locker door banged, sounding like the gunshot Todd desired and punctuating the sudden unnatural stillness.

After a few moments of hesitation, a tall, wiry boy stepped forward. “Do you want to come play ball with us?” he asked, gaining nods of approval from the kids around him. “After a few days of it, I bet you won’t have to wear that thing anymore.”

Todd unscrunched his eyes, which had been squeezed shut since his disclosure. “Ok,” he said, and after struggling back into his shirt, he followed the athletic boy.

“Well, I never, in all my years,” said the teacher to Mona’s parents, clustered in the classroom doorway. “Sometimes they kill themselves. Sometimes they die in an alley. Sometimes they just disappear. I never considered acceptance by anyone as an option.”

Mona felt her own hidden bra, a lot happier now that she knew that acceptance wasn’t her only option either.
 

​

Suzanne J. Sprague, originally from Bad Axe, MI, is a full-time librarian and part-time author in Daytona Beach, FL, who occasionally reviews books for the Historical Novel Society. Suzanne holds degrees in literature and in library science.

* * *

Surf Reality 

By Matthew Taub

​

 (Lower East Side, April 1997)

Surf Reality’s House of Urban Savages certainly sounded like a fictitious venue Christina
invented from the depths of her creative mind, perhaps during an extended painting session--
simply convincing herself, Mark suspected, that the fascinating but long-winded title of a place
actually existed, instead of popping into her imagination. Brushing and splattering away for
hours on end opened the mental fault line where these types of fantasies became persuasive--
one could grow increasingly delusional in the artistic process, or so she had advised him. Mark’s
concerns were cemented when he saw no such “experimental theater” venue, or at least nothing
that looked the part from street level, as he loitered at Allen and Stanton in the Lower East Side,
waiting for his company to arrive.
   
Walking north from the Delancey Street station, at first Mark even thought he had gotten
off at the wrong stop entirely. Dominicans sat on stoops, puttering about, with little other street
activity whatsoever, and certainly none of the sort to convey the appurtenances that would
surround such a hallmark to the performing arts. But then, as the sun set, a flock of guitar-case
carrying musicians entered— invaded, really— strolling, gossiping, heading to various venues but
also imbuing the scene with an expressive inventiveness that made it plausible for Mark to believe
that he was indeed at the right location— and on the precipice, in fact, of a new, emerging scene. 
   
That magical feeling, a wellspring of innovative kinetic energy, filled Mark with a
hopefulness and excitement at the same time that it lent a sense of despair— that this was the
kind of place that, regrettably, would price itself out in a decade. The mags would call it “the
next SoHo,” or some other loathsome phrase, and they might as well hold the funeral shortly
thereafter. A trend was now in place, tiredly occurring with great repetition, the predictable
populations of artists followed by professionals on the move to yet another neighborhood, the
process occurring in endless perpetuity— every “new” location but a weigh station for all players
involved to escape each other, and perhaps only briefly, themselves.
   
Though Mark now felt comfortable he had arrived at the correct general
geographical region, he still wasn’t sure, based on the view from the intersection where he found
himself, that he had the right address. He almost made the mistake of approaching the nearby
bodega, to ask if he had the right street and number.

“Whoa! Hang back there cowboy!” Christina shrieked, grabbing Mark by the arm,
thankfully pulling him away at the last minute.

“There you are. This is the place? What’s going on?”

“This,” Christina gestured to the mock shop Mark nearly crossed the threshold of, “is just
a false-front— for a crack house. And downstairs is a brothel. Our scene is upstairs, on the
second floor. I’m glad I caught you! Didn’t you notice the ancient, dusty products in the firstfloor
window?!”

Mark smiled, amused by the onslaught of information. “Sorry, I’m not up to speed on
my drug-dealing and prostitution, um... radar.” 

   
Now that he had turned this metaphoric mental
device on, more sensations also came alive. The Allen Street Boys had been making deals in the
open air all along, Mark oblivious until that very moment. And the women who lingered
endlessly on the sidewalk median across the way didn’t just appear to be strung-out street walkers
approaching the sunset of their careers— they were the real thing.

“You’re an idiot.” She gestured towards the upstairs, “let’s go.”

   
While Mark similarly believed his retort possessed only a lackluster quality, he predicted a
reception of at least moderate amusement. Christina’s grim response now worried him. He had
believed— safely believed, or so he thought— they had both willingly taken the plunge to
purposefully remerge as friends.
   
The acts at Surf Reality could range greatly, Christina knowingly advised, taking comfort in
her role as self-appointed authority of all cultural comprehension. From sketch comedy to
performance art, “you’re really have to be ready for anything— are you up for it?” She asked
Mark as if there was a choice, as if each of them weren’t already occupying one of the
hodgepodge chairs in the audience, which varied from the hardened kitchen stock with metalwire
backing to the padded stackable more appropriately found in hotel conference rooms. From
where had this varied array of seating arrangements been collected? It wouldn’t surprise Mark if
a great majority had been stolen.
   
The show was soon underway. Mark and Christina were treated to a singer who performed
at children’s parties, now sarcastically trying his material out on an adult audience. An exprostitute
did a soliloquy about her former goings-on. A one-woman dramatic performance
drifted from ramblings in a seductive satin robe to a full-blown, salacious burlesque show. A man
in revealing, tight-fitting briefs and a tank-top that hugged the jelly fat of his abdomen poured
whip cream on various body parts, then slowly licked away the sources of nourishment in
complete silence. A host of more generic comedic acts (at least by comparison) also took place in
between.

“Awesome stuff! Really,” Mark offered while clapping effusively at the show’s conclusion.

“Thanks so much for bringing me to this— I had no idea!”

“Awesome,” Christina repeated, “you would say something like that.”

For Mark, it had now long felt like his meetings-up with Christina involved this sort of persistent denigration. The
circumstances for their comings together were often her possession of some highly-coveted
possibility for him to inadvertently join her on an “in” happening— and increasingly, the context
was that Mark was some interloper pest, someone decidedly not “in the know”— a half-friend she
begrudgingly brought along, seemingly out of obligation.
Discussing the performances over drinks at the nearby Luna Lounge, Mark hoped to keep
his increasing suspicions of the growing gap between them at a distance.

“So tell me more about all this great art you’ve been seeing,” Christina seemed to
inquired enthusiastically, but perhaps mockingly.

“Well, you know, all the greatest hits of the major museums,” Mark advised. “I’m sure
you know them well. What I’d like to know more about is what you’ve been working on.”

“Ugh. I can’t talk about my art like that. You just— wouldn’t understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“No, it’s fine. Go and enjoy the mass appeal art. That’s— acceptable. That’s what it’s
there for, people like you.”

Mark’s pained faced conveyed a look of incredulity.

“It’s just— if you’re not ‘in it,’ if you’re not creating and producing the real stuff on the
cutting edge, I can’t possibly bring you into it, or even up to speed on it.”

Mark always held a fleeting worry that Christina would be sucked into the artists’ crowd
cult. Even as far back as the protest days in Tompkins Square, she had rough edges that lent
themselves easily to a haughty outlook of artistic and cultural superiority. But now, Mark’s once
tepid anxiety about Christina’s demeanor was emerging into dire concern. Her more brash
tendencies had been further nurtured by the PRATT indoctrination apparatus. Not all art
students had to turn out this way, did they? With Christina, Mark thought, all along there had
been a softer, gentler side— a bruised, misunderstood, innocent child, rightfully protecting
herself with just enough of a false cloak of elitism. Mark was hoping that sweet, genuine girl
underneath— the girl he briefly knew so intimately— would ultimately win out. But as he
watched her change over time, and as he witnessed other friends age in a similar manner, Mark
realized that people often didn’t grow into adults as much as they hardened into some kind of
regrettable, permanent form— often haphazardly, unknowingly, or even against their will.

“I’m sorry,” Christina continued to confess, “You just couldn’t possibly understand or
appreciate the work we’re dong.”

“That’s rather presumptuous, isn’t it?” Mark struck back.

“Is it, though?”

“Yes, it is.” Mark found himself unable to hesitate any longer. “You’re talented, but it’s
outdone by how unbelievably pretentious you are. Your supposedly high-cultural taste is
completely undercut by... just, this— stunning amount of arrogance.”

Christina scoffed. “I think I’m just being truthful. I don’t presume to know certain things
about the law— if I asked you questions, I probably still wouldn’t understand even after you’d
explained it.”

“I don’t think that’s actually true. And anyway, the point is I’d actually try, without
talking down to you, or... thinking I’m somehow better than you. Jesus.”

“Well, you could still probably lecture me,” Christina retorted, “and point out how offbase
my questions were.”

“Except that I just wouldn’t do that. That I never would do that.”

Mark conveyed a look of disgust. What had become of his former lover? When they
parted later that evening, Mark was unsure whether he would ever convince himself to see her
again.

​

Matthew A. Taub is a writer and lawyer living in Brooklyn, NY. His work has previously appeared in Absinthe Revival and The Weekenders Magazine. He is currently working on his first novel, Death of a Dying City, a panorama of New York City's rapid gentrification and multiple ethnic enclaves through rotating character-driven vignettes, all of which are connected by an imperiled lawyer-protagonist.

​

* * *

We Are All Made of Stars

By Clay Waters

​

I was driving Ashley's car home. Dallas to El Paso is a ten-hour haul if you're doing nothing else, and I wasn't.

A red Honda Accord. Bought with her own money, or anyway not mine. She'd worked at the mall for two years, her friend said. Her key-chain held a little white rubber Schnauzer toy and only a couple of keys. Too young for more. Far too young.

Before starting I'd dipped my hand under the seat. A sandal. Lipstick. A grocery list, which I folded and put in my pocket. A cup-holder full of pennies. Deep under the seat among the oiled parts was tucked a light, fragile-feeling object wrapped in newspaper. I put it back.

The handling in the Honda was stiff and sludgy, as if it was resisting me. Automatically I went to shift the seat back and stopped, as if fearful of displacing her. The radio was set to classical music. Had she liked classical? I let the violins wash through the car.

Her diary sat in the passenger's seat. A version of her, riding by my side. A booby trap, that could only go off if I opened it. I would have to open it.

I knew I-20 intimately and adjusted unconsciously, the way your body shifts in sleep, to the speed traps, the stretches you could open up, where the four lanes became ten and back again. In a couple of hours the handling smoothed out; it became my car. I didn't stop. Stopping would mean reading. The violins blurred into dissonant piano, into full orchestra, back to violin, my burning bladder a chronic condition, beyond cure or caring. Penance.

The sun fell, the sky went black: A bright clear night for stars. Ursa Major. Ashley had been right. It doesn't look like a bear at all. Did the stars look different in Dallas? I had only been twice, once to drive her to school, the other time for a weekend visit where she couldn't do anything right.

What is wrong with me?

An exhausted noise humming below the violins drew my attention. I had neglected the vital thing: The gas gauge in the Accord was bottom right, not top left like in my truck, and it was dipped dangerously below the line.

Don't leave me here.

I lurched the car toward the bright green exit sign and curved sharply off I-20, bracing the diary so it didn't slide; immediately a blue and white poison snow-cone lit up in the rear-view mirror. I pulled over, still caught on the ramp, pulled out my license, her registration, straightening them for presentation. I blinked politely in the glare of the cop's flashlight.

"Sir, I notice you turned off when I came behind you. Can I ask why?"

"I didn't know you were back there, that's why."

A silent perusal of the offered material by flashlight, thorough enough to be insulting. "I see that this vehicle isn't registered in your name. Is Ashley your wife?"

"Ashley is not my wife."

Officer Friendly took the flashlight, looked over the backseat, checked the tags. Faintly from the main highway came the whirr of speeding cars and rigs. When he returned he had a pen. "I also see you're driving with an expired tag. Were you aware these tags had expired, sir?"

"It's not my car. It's my daughter's car."

"May I ask why you're driving your daughter's car?"

"This is bullshit."

The officer swelled up. "What was that, sir?" He put the pen away, perhaps considering an upgrade.

"You know I'm 49 and never been in a jail in all my life? Because I've always tried to be respectful. Or maybe I was just scared."

"This will be easier if you cooperate, sir." I thought of a white cell, bologna for lunch, and was surprised to discover I didn't care. "I'll ask you again. Why are you driving your daughter's car?"

"I am driving my daughter's car home from her funeral. What I will do after that I do not yet know but I shall certainly keep the authorities in the loop."

A pause. "Is that it. Well. I am awful sorry to hear that, sir."

"I'm sorry about a lot. You know I'm not a criminal. Any more questions you'd like to ask me, or am I free to keep minding my own business?"

He hadn't stepped off or stooped down, if anything had become more rigid. But now he looked like he wanted to take off the patrol cap and scratch his head. And now dammit I felt a little bad for him. Life pushes you against a wall and takes a photo and that's who you are. It was all a damn shame.

The cop pulled off after mumbling something about getting a new tag ("when you can get to it") and I sat there a while, the gas ticking away. I was two hours from the empty house. I must have sat there half an hour, not looking at the diary.

By the time I cranked up again the fuel was vapor. The only light up ahead revealed the bright orange gabled roof of what turned out to be a motor hotel.

I coasted to a stop in the parking lot under the one lamppost still leaking light and rounded up what Ashley had left behind. The thing in newspaper I dropped in a garbage can with a heavy lid.

I took a room on the second level. After a long piss I unhooked the toy dog from the key chain and placed it on the table along with the grocery list and the penny jar. The diary I laid softly on the bedside table. The air conditioner was dead so I threw open the door for a breeze and stood on the landing to take it in.

Those stars so serendipitously bunched together into constellations? Actually billions of miles apart. Only by chance do they line up to appear connected. Thinking of the gaps made me dizzy.

I went inside and propped myself up in bed. I would do it now, while my dread was just another odd shadow in my punch-drunk mind. I skimmed the tight cursive with wretched urgency for damnation or possible reprieve.

And finally, nothing of family. A police raid of a party, a few hours in lock-up. I burned with bootless anger. "Don't forget the mustard!" twice, an inside joke that would never get explained. Ashley's skittering over the pages. Some of the A's curlicued into elaborate flowers with big smiling heads. Her work schedule for this week. Plans. We all make plans.

I laid my head down, and the universe fell in.

Through the singularity I emerged un-weighted, floating above the bed, through the open door. The sky was gleaming, milky with stars. I rocked my head back to see more and found I already could, the grand panorama effortlessly visible as I rose through white mist. But I recognized nothing. Had the constellations not come together yet? Had they long fallen apart? So what was I then? What was anyone?

I startled upright in bed, slapping at my tingling arms.

What is this world?

I bolted out onto the landing. The car was under the lamp, just where it had stopped. It was empty. It was just a car. It was the stars that had changed, a little.
 

​

Clay Waters has had short stories published in The Santa Barbara Review, Liquid Ohio, Abyss & Apex, and Three-Lobe Burning Eye.

* * *

Mysterious Ways 

By Laura Winton 

​

Roger couldn't remember exactly when God had started talking to him.  It seemed to him that the conversation had been constant ever since he could remember.  He would lie on his back in the grass and look up at the clouds as if they were the eyes of the Old Man himself.  At five, in his youthful naiveté, he would believe that white and dark clouds were God and the Devil, arguing it out over something or other.  Roger would root for God's little white clouds the way baseball fans rooted for their home team.

By age eight, Roger was instructing his peers in religious matters.   Since his parents were not church-going people themselves, he held Sunday school classes in his backyard until the other kids in the neighborhood grew tired of his proselytizing and went home to watch cartoons.

Eloise couldn't tell you exactly when God sought her out, either.  At first, it was a little nudge of conscience.  A quiet, albeit annoying, little nag.  "Yeah yeah, ok," Eloise would mutter and shuffle off out of temptation's way, whether it be a dollar lying on a table or a nasty comment she was dying to make to someone.

Then the talking became louder and more frequent--as if God were lonely.  As if God wanted her opinion on things.  She once had a teacher who said that God loved to argue, as evidenced by Abraham's defense of Sodom and Gomorra.  "Well," Abe would begin, "what if there are only 20 good people.  Will you destroy those 20 because of everyone else?" and God would respond "Ok, if you find 20 good people, I will spare them all."  Then Abraham would up the ante.  "What if there are only 10?"  God would sigh and say "Ok, then I will spare those 10". And then Abraham would say "What if there are only 5?"  And so on.

Well, Eloise could certainly attest to that.  Oh boy, did the Big Guy love to argue!  Anything at all.  Politics.  Ethics.  Football.  Sex.

Sex was a particular bone of contention for Eloise.  In her younger days, His fanatical insistence on chastity had ruined more than a few of her dates.  Eloise and God would start arguing about sex, and she'd go stomping down the street, her jaw clenched, hands made into fists, arms swinging, taking large, purposeful strides, telling God how full of shit He was.

Yes, God's chattering at Eloise had become so strong and so constant that she couldn't focus on anything else.  She remembered quotes from the Bible saying "I am a jealous God" and boy, they weren't kidding!  God talked so loud she could no longer hear her boss, her coworkers, her husband, or her children. 

Eventually, Eloise lost her job.  The constant chattering coming from behind her cubicle was too distracting to her coworkers.  Not to mention her utter lack of productivity. And she kept accidentally typing God's name on all her memos and letters, which her boss was constantly having to explain away.  Her family put her in a hospital for a while, but eventually, funds ran out and the doctors had to admit that they were no match for the heavenly harangue, and so they sent her home.

Even with noise in her head, Eloise could see the effect this was having on her family.  So eventually she left.  She left behind a note that He'd helped her to write.  It had all of the old standards.  "You'll be better off, without seeing me like this everyday, your crazy old Mom fighting with God all the time."  The truth may set you free, but it was no day at the beach.  She made sure He knew that, too.  She was none too pleased with this turn that her life was taking.  But, there was not much she could do about it.  He kept reassuring her.  "Take up your cross and follow me," He would say.

That bugged the crap out of her.  It seemed to her that He was always quoting out of the Bible.  At least, as well as she could remember it.  It had been a while.  She kept admonishing Him to "get some fresher material, will ya?  I've heard that one already."  Geesh!  It was like a comedian who kept telling the same joke over and over again.

All Roger had ever wanted, from the time he was a small child, was to do God's work.  He would feel envious when he read the story of God's dove descending on the young man Jesus, declaring "This is my son, in whom I am well pleased."  Roger wanted that kind of public acknowledgment.

As Roger grew up, he read every book he could get his hands on about religion.  He set up a reading schedule for getting through the whole Bible--which he had done twice by the time he was 14.  His path was clear. 

Years later, though, something started to change.  Roger went to the seminary and had been at the top of his class.  His knowledge of scripture and his ability to make sense of things was keen.  He had become a minister and he and his wife and children were the proverbial pillars of their small community. 

But the voice grew louder and more demanding.  Roger was too comfortable.  He was preaching to the converted--or those who were as converted as they were going to get.  It seemed as if God were asking Roger, "What have you done for me lately?"

Roger was angry.  He had devoted his entire life to God.  What should he do differently?  For the first time ever, he questioned God and his own path.  In doubt and frustration, he opened his Bible, almost daring God to tell him what to do.  And on the page he turned to, there was the answer.  "Take up your cross and follow me."

Roger struggled to understand this message.  He thought he had already taken up the cross, but the voice seemed to deny him.  The nagging continued.  Day and night.  Through dinner, through Roger's sermons, delivered to the well-meaning members of his congregation, the fidgety children and the adults who would check their watches to remind him when he had gone on a little too long.  The voice became louder and more insistent than ever.  TAKE UP YOUR CROSS, ROGER, AND FOLLOW ME.

And so it happened that Roger decided to take a short sabbatical from his church.  He packed a small suitcase, and went to the city to preach the Good News in the streets.  At first he was afraid.  He had always lived in small towns, and had heard horror stories about big cities.  Would it be obvious that he didn't belong there?  Would anyone listen?  Worse yet, would he be arrested, mugged, beaten up?  What if he couldn't think of anything to say?  Street preachers were hardly encouraged in this day and age.  It wasn't exactly taught in his seminary.  He had never been prepared for anything like this.  Roger looked up to the sky and took a deep breath. "This was your idea."  He set down his briefcase, pulled out his Bible, and started to read out loud.

Today's discussion had become quite contentious, with Eloise shouting "So, you're telling me that I should cut off my hand rather than masturbate?  I thought my body was supposed to be a temple!"  "What're you lookin' at?" she demanded of disconcerted passersby.  "I'm trying to have a discussion with God here.  YOU MIND?"

At a nearby corner, Eloise heard a horrendous din.  Some man was standing on a corner, shouting.  She couldn't make out what it was, so loud was her own internal conversation.  In fact, she couldn't make out anything at all, just a bunch of screaming inside and outside of her head.  She felt the tension building, the blood coming up into her face as she stormed up to the corner where the man was standing, put her hands over her ears, looked up to the sky and screamed, "EVERYBODY SHUT THE HELL UP."

And then it was quiet.

Eloise looked up into Roger's face.  "What are you going on about over here?"

"Preaching God's word, like He told me to, Ma'am."

Eloise shook her head.  "Where does He find the time?  I guess He really is everywhere."  She peered back up at Roger.  "Hope you got some fresher material."

"Only material there is, Ma'am.  The Bible."

"Bah."  Eloise threw her hand behind her and walked away.

"God bless you, Sister," Roger called out after her.  Roger smiled and went back to his sermon.

As time went on, Eloise and Roger frequently crossed paths.  Some days Eloise would stop to argue with Roger, as it seemed to her that the two of them were getting some conflicting messages into their respective crania.  Some days, the sound of his voice, clashing with the cacophony in her head, would fill her with such anxiety that she would have to hurry off down some other street to get away.

Roger felt surprisingly good.  None of his worst fears had been borne out.  Most people were pretty friendly to him and a few people even stopped to chat from time to time.  And there was crazy Eloise to keep things lively.  She, too, was one of God's children, a very special one, it seemed to Roger, even if she did have some pretty odd ideas.  On occasion, he even bought her lunch so they could continue their conversations.  Of course, her end was always dotted with a side conversation, including bits like "Do you mind?  I'm trying to talk here."  She would frequently complain that God finished all her sentences.  She seemed an unlikely Bride of Christ, but who was Roger to judge?  Their lunches gave the Salvation Army folks a welcome break.  Eloise usually spent her time in line at the soup kitchen correcting some Captain or Major on the finer points of God's word.

Roger returned to his church, but continued to drive into the city everyday for a few hours.  And every night he brought home fascinating stories for his family about life in the city, and particularly about Eloise.  His sermons were crisper now and more colorful as he led his congregation into worlds that they did not normally visit, worlds where God spoke quite a different language and certainly moved in ways stranger than they were accustomed to.

Friday was one more day like that for Roger.  He walked up to the corner, as he had done every day, set his briefcase down, and pulled out his Bible, shouting to the people who were all rushing to get to work on time.

"The love of money is the root of all evil" he called out in a loud, clear voice.   "Slow down and get your lives straight.  The last days are here. Take time out to listen to God's voice.  The Lord is calling on you to take up the cross and follow Him."

Eloise, too, was out this morning, as she was every day, bright and early.  She would rather sleep in, of course, but God and the homeless shelter kept slightly earlier hours, a fact which she continually took up with both, but which neither were willing to give in on.  This particular morning, God was noisier than he'd ever been.  Not only was He chatting with Eloise, but he was having some side conversation with his angels, like someone who was yelling at their kids while they were on the phone with someone else.

Even the city seemed particularly noisy to Eloise today.  More cars honking honking and people pushing her forward down the sidewalks, tall men in suits striding, it seemed, right over her, as if they would just step on her if she did not duck and the exhaust from the buses filling up her lungs and people with pierced tongues and black lipstick frowning at her as she made her way through the city's thicket and the whole time God yelling at His kids and chattering in the background.

As the crowd moved Eloise involuntarily forward, she heard a familiar voice, loud above the million other assaults on her neurotransmitters.  The blood rushed into Eloise's head, pounding her eardrums, her heart beating faster and faster and finally she broke from the crowd and saw Roger standing in front of her, but Eloise did not recognize Roger as her friend and theological debate partner.   All she noticed was the noise coming from his corner as he belted out his daily sermon.  In one swift movement she picked up a large rock and lunged.

It all happened so fast Roger didn't know how to respond.  "Eloise.  Stop!"  He screamed as the rock hit against his head over and over.  This small woman was much stronger than he had realized.  "Eloise, Eloise, don't!"  he repeated.  "EVERYONE. . ." Eloise gasped as she pounded on Roger with the large stone in her hand "SHUT . . .  THE . . HELL  . . .UP!"

And then it was quiet.

A small circle formed around them.  A few people had pulled Eloise off of Roger, as he lay on the sidewalk, his head bloody and bruised.  Eloise broke away from her captors and looked down at Roger.  He was breathing shallowly.  The ambulance sirens could already be heard, getting louder and closer.

Eloise looked shaken for a moment.  Then Roger began to stir and it seemed that he was ok.  "Bah."  Eloise said as bystanders attended to Roger.  She brushed her hand behind her and shuffled off into the crowd, looking up and muttering, "See what you made me do?"
 

Laura Winton is a poet and theatre artist, who sometimes also writes prose, including short stories. Her work has been published in the US and the UK over the past 25 years and she herself published the journal Karawane: Or, the Temporary Death of the Bruistist, a journal devoted to experimental writers who also perform their work. She also published at one time the Hairy-Legged Man-Hating Feminist Gazette, which she assumes needs no further explanation.

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